The Tender Age of Five
by Mackenzie L
Summary: A compilation of stories from the von Trapp children when they were each around five years old.
1. Roses are Red

**The Tender Age of Five **

**by Mackenzie L.**

_This is a compilation of short stories from the von Trapp children when they were each around five years old. __I had a lot of fun writing these because I am just fascinated with the dynamics of the children and love to explore ways that they could interact with each other. __The writing for this fic is done in a much simpler fashion than I usually like to write. It seemed appropriate being that the stories are told from a five-year-old perspective. _

_There will be seven stories in all, ending with Gretl. Yes, this means Gretl's story will take place at the time of the movie, so Maria will be in her story._

_Some of the characters used in these stories come from my other fanfic, Ships That Pass in the Night. It's not necessary that you be familiar with it to understand these, but it might be something to consider reading beforehand to get the full, intended effect._

* I do not own anything related to _The Sound of Music_ or material containing information about the real Von Trapp family.

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**Chapter 1: Roses are Red **

** An Excerpt from Liesl's childhood**

_I like to think of Liesl as sensitive and romantic. I think that this memory is appropriate to her because it focuses on the balance between responsibility and romantic idealism, both of which are traits that I see in her as the eldest child. She has a big heart that sometimes gets in the way of logical thinking, and I tried to show this element in her story._

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Liesl von Trapp was a good little girl. Everyone said so.

In fact, she was so well-behaved that they had stopped calling her a "little girl" and began referring to her as a "young lady."

Liesl was thrilled with the title and used every opportunity to live up to it, especially around adults.

It was such a wonderful thing to be appreciated. Adults could tell she was something special.

Her younger brother and sister were not nearly as well-behaved as she was. Obnoxious Friedrich liked to break her mother's perfume bottles and pesky Louisa was a suction cup for her parents' attention. But Liesl was smart enough to realize that it wasn't their fault for being so difficult to handle. They were much younger than her, and they didn't know any better. But sometimes it was hard to accept that they could still get away with things that she couldn't.

But there were definite advantages to being the eldest child. She was always doing things that her brother and sister could not do themselves: riding a bike, reciting nursery rhymes, getting dressed without help, climbing trees. Her father sometimes let her stay up later than her siblings, and her mother always called Liesl her 'Little Lady.' That was not a name fit for Louisa. It was reserved just for Liesl.

Her position in the family was not a counterfeit delusion of grandeur. It was a real job, with real responsibilities.

And Liesl already knew what she was going to be like when she grew up. She wanted to be just like her mother. With her porcelain skin, eyes as the color of a misty spring morning, dark lashes, and thin, pristine brows that resembled the swift stroke of a calligrapher's ink pen, Mother had the most beautiful face, and so it was quite a compliment to be compared to her. People were always saying how much Liesl looked like Mother.

Whenever Grandmother Odelle came to visit, she would ask to see _the portrait._ Liesl would always stand up a little straighter when they asked for _the portrait_, because she knew they were going to compare her face to her own mother's when _she_ was five years old.

Her mother and her grandma would come down the staircase, carrying the small old picture, set in a silvery-green frame with little leaves carved from brass.

Her grandmother would stand before her and smile and hold it up to Liesl's little face. Sometimes the little brass leaves would pinch her cheek if it was held too close. But Liesl never complained - she felt too important to do that. It was worth it when Grandma Odelle would step back and gasp. "Oh, Agathe, it's an uncanny resemblance!"

Liesl always giggled at the word 'uncanny.' She didn't know what it meant, but it sounded very funny when adults said it.

Adults were always saying the strangest things.

Whenever there were visitors, especially if they were old people, they would always tell her parents that their house was too big for just three children. Then they would get this little twinkle in their eyes and they would laugh at her parents.

Their house _was _rather big, but someday Liesl and her siblings would be older, and they would take up much more room then. So what was the problem with just three children?

And why was it so funny that they had a large house, anyway?

Even the gardener, Frau Wilmitt, said things that didn't make any sense.

Whenever Liesl got too close to the rosebushes, she would say in her scratchy voice, "Better back away from those roses, little fraulein, or they might _bite_ you!"

As if a beautiful flower could bite someone! As Mother would say, _'That's simply preposterous!'_

But even that wasn't the strangest thing Liesl heard.

Her father was always saying that her mother looked at life through a rose-colored spyglass. _Whatever did that mean?_ Liesl wondered. He said it quite often, but she never once saw her mother looking through any such device. It sounded pretty, though. Maybe one day mother would show it to her.

Every night, mother would read to Liesl from a large book of fairytales. The book was so big that Liesl could barely hold it herself. It was pale orange and it had winged horses on the front cover. The cover was not hard like other books - instead, it was slightly squishy. Liesl liked to push her fingerprints into the cover and then watch them puff back up. The pages were trimmed in gold so whenever you closed the book, you could see the shiny gold edges, but when you looked at just one page alone, you couldn't tell that it was gold. Her mother said that was because a single page was too thin, but Liesl believed it was because the book was magical.

Liesl's favorite story was about a servant girl who lived in the castle of a wealthy prince. The prince was going to marry a princess from another kingdom, and the servant girl was very sad because she was in love with the prince and didn't want him to marry someone else. At the end of the story, it seems like all hope is lost, but then the prince runs from his wedding to be with the servant girl, and he tells her that she is the one he wants to marry!

Liesl and her mother agreed that this was the best story in the whole book. Perhaps even the best story ever written!

"Isn't that so romantic?" Her mother would ask wistfully. She said that almost every time they finished the story. And Liesl would always nod and yawn at the same time after she said it.

"Goodnight, angel." Her mother's soft voice would say just before she turned down the lamp. Liesl would watch through half-lidded eyes as her mother placed the book on the bottom shelf and shut the door to her room. She would wait until her footsteps faded in the hall, and if she hadn't fallen asleep by then, Liesl would get slowly out of her bed and tiptoe over to the bookshelf. She would drag the book back to her bed and turn to the second to the last page. In the dim glow of her lamp, she could make out the enchanting illustration of the prince and princess kissing. They were dressed in fancy clothes and framed by a vine of red roses. She couldn't explain why she was so very fascinated by that picture. Her mother would show it to her for a little while when she finished reading, but not long enough as Liesl would have liked.

It reminded her of Mother and Father. They both even had brown hair like her parents. And the prince was slightly taller than the princess.

She didn't get to see her parents kiss very often, but when they did, it looked exactly like that.

When she grew up, she wanted her first kiss to look just like the prince and princess kissing in the book.

When Liesl woke the next morning, the book would right back in its place again: the very first book on the very bottom shelf. Sometimes she would swear that she had forgotten to put it back in its place. But it was never in her bed with her when she woke up. She was convinced that book was magical. But she couldn't tell Mother about it or else she would get into trouble for sneaking out of bed to look at the picture one last time.

During the day, it was much easier to look at any picture she wanted without anyone seeing her. But it just wasn't as magical feeling in the day as it was at night.

In the day, it was fun to sit on the floor in her bedroom and spread out all of her books so that they made a circle around her. She would take a piece of paper and a pencil and try to draw the pictures from the books.

Sometimes they turned out well, sometimes they did not. Sometimes she would cheat and trace right over the pages so that her drawings looked almost exactly like the illustrations.

If she felt her drawings were good enough, she would show them to Mother and Father. Then she would get right back to drawing. She could probably draw all day long if Friedrich didn't keep begging to join her, or if the maids didn't kick her out of her room so that they could tidy up. She just loved to draw all of the lovely people and animals in her books.

Liesl wished she could be more like the characters in those books. She wanted exciting things to happen to her. She wanted to have adventures of her own.

She could sit back and wait patiently for something exciting to come to her. Or she could seek out an adventure herself.

One evening, she decided to do just the latter. Moments after her mother's footsteps disappeared, instead of sneaking back to the bookshelf to look inside the fairy tale book, she tiptoed to the glass door to her balcony and drew the lace curtains, letting the misty blues of twilight flood into her bedroom. She stared out into the endless washed out watercolors of nature, analyzing her temporary escape. She would be all on her own out there, in a chamber of never-ending places to explore, to unlock. It would be just like in the stories.

There was even a small pocket in her nightgown that she could use to put some pretzels inside in case she got hungry on her journey.

She eagerly stuffed her feet into her shoes without first putting on her socks and opened the door to her balcony as quietly as she could.

As the cool night air hit her face, she began to have second thoughts about her adventure. She wanted to be safely tucked back into her bed, but at the same time, she wanted to explore outside without anyone ever finding out.

It couldn't hurt to just try exploring for a while, could it? She had climbed down the little cherry tree from her balcony to the ground many times before. It wasn't really a cherry tree, but she liked to call it that. It sometimes grew strange red berries in the summertime. Liesl once thought they were cherries, but Father told her they weren't. He said they were poison, and she'd better not try to eat them.

But it wasn't a long way down that tree. She just had to do it when no one was looking because they never believed her when she told them it was perfectly safe.

She took a deep breath and clung to the sturdiest branch of the tree. Hoisting herself from the edge of the railing, she perched herself in the center bend of the tree. It was funny how every time she did that, she felt nervous that this was the time she would mess up, but she always ended up perfectly fine. How she loved this tree.

In springtime, it was covered in newly formed blossoms; as she felt her way down the branches she was dusted with their powdery pink pollen, coughing in a cloud of flowering buds.

In the summer, it was full of thick, glossy green leaves. No one would have seen her when she crawled inside of it because those leaves completely concealed her.

In autumn, the leaves would crinkle with one touch and fall from the branches as she climbed down. They exposed her as they were swept away by chilly winds - crimson, orange, purple, and yellow.

The winter was not so simple to face, and she had never before been brave enough to try it when the tree was glazed with icicles. She would wait until she was older for that.

This night in particular was not a problem. It was the pleasant time of year just between spring and summer - ideal as long as the rain stayed in its cloud. She slipped down from the lowest branch of the tree and took off running as soon as she landed in the dewy grass. A grin glowed on her face as she sprinted across the vast yard towards the lake. The blue-green water churned with the ripples of the wind, sparkling like melted gelatin under the street lights. She turned to regard her house far behind her now, and smirked as she imagined how jealous Friedrich and Louisa would be if they knew what great things she was doing in the middle of the night while they were asleep. But the soft golden light illuminating the thin curtains of her parents' room gave her a tiny twinge of guilt. It was the only light still on in the entire house. She hoped they would go to sleep soon so that they wouldn't notice she was missing.

The bright moon lit her way as she skipped deeper into the wooded area to the left of the house. The overlapping shadows of the trees gave the illusion of black lace stretched across the grass. She had decided that she was going to be very brave and go further into the woods than she had ever gone before. And she was going to do it in the dark!

She giggled softly to herself. She was just like the character in a storybook already!

Not far into the woods, she heard a rustling noise up ahead of her. But she didn't run away. If she was going to be brave, she would have to see what it was. She crouched down on all fours and listened for the noise again. Following the direction of the sound, she crawled up to a fat pine tree. With a trembling hand, she brushed the delicate needles aside and found herself face to face with the glowing topaz eyes of a stray cat.

The animal stared cautiously at her, as though afraid it might be in danger. Liesl inched closer to the cat, and cooed words of comfort, "Don't be afraid, kitty. I won't hurt you..."

But the cat looked like it was backing away, and Liesl had to think fast, just like the storybook characters, if she wanted to keep it from escaping. She hastily reached into her pocket and produced the pieces of pretzel she had brought for herself. It was more important to feed this poor little cat, though. She could wait to eat at home.

"Here, kitty. Are you hungry?" She whispered, hoping she wouldn't scare it away. She held her breath as the cat slowly slinked its way to her upturned palm and ate the bits of pretzel right up. Liesl giggled as the cat's tongue tickled her hand, and she carefully reached out to pat its head. It swiftly made its way back into its crawl space beneath the tree trunk and curled up in a bed of fallen pine needles.

"You must be tired." Liesl guessed as the cat blinked back at her. Not able to compress a yawn, Liesl realized how tired she was herself. But it wasn't like a fairytale character to abandon her adventure just because she was sleepy.

She thought for a moment about what to name her cat. Now that she knew where to find it, she could come back every night and bring some food so it wouldn't go hungry. But it wouldn't be like a real story unless the cat had a name.

The cat was pretty, so she had to have a pretty name. What sorts of things were pretty?

Sunshine was pretty, but the cat was too dark to be called 'Sunshine.'

Cakes were pretty, but it would be too silly to call a cat 'Cake.'

Flowers were pretty...What was the prettiest flower of all? Mother always said roses were the most beautiful flowers.

That was it, then. "I'm going to call you Rose." Liesl whispered eagerly to her new friend.

The cat lifted her head a little. She seemed to like her new name.

"I'll be back tomorrow night, Rose. I won't forget you. I promise." Liesl carefully arranged the low branches of the tree to cover the crawl space so that no other animal could find her cat.

She wanted to be sure she was absolutely safe.

Liesl ran back to the house, thankful for the light of the moon to guide her. She could run even faster now that she didn't have to worry about spilling the contents of her pockets. But she ran out of breath by the time she made it to the base of her cherry tree. She worried for a moment or two that she was too tired to climb back up the tree. But then she thought of how much trouble she would be in for sneaking out at night if she called for her parents to let her in the door. Their light was off now, and they would be even angrier with her for waking them up. They might make her sleep in the attic so that she couldn't escape again. And if she couldn't escape again, then she couldn't bring food to the poor cat.

She had to climb the tree - it was what all the characters in stories did. And so that was just what she did.

Being brave really was wonderful - she could have done _anything_! People were always calling her father brave. And he seemed to always be able to take care of everything, no matter how big the problems were that he faced. Maybe the two went hand in hand.

The only bad part about being in a story was that she couldn't tell anyone about what she was doing. It was fun to keep secrets, but only for so long. In some ways, she wished she could tell everyone how brave and smart she was being. Maybe they wouldn't have believed her anyway.

She had an important job to do now - even more important than being a sister. Rose was counting on her to bring her food at night. Liesl had to sacrifice her well-behaved nature to help her cat. She had snuck into the kitchen every day that week to find pieces of fish or ham and wrap them up so that no one could find them. At night she would make her familiar route back to Rose's hiding place, and every night she would find the cat waiting patiently for her. It was a good thing Liesl stumbled upon her - she really needed someone to take care of her!

Even as the same routine went on for a couple weeks, Liesl never grew tired of helping her little animal. She was doing something brave and important, and Rose would never forget her for it. Maybe one day she would even have baby kittens that would need to be watched over as well. Liesl was committed to being a reliable friend.

But a cloud of doubt settled one night when Liesl ventured out only to find that Rose was not in her usual spot. She checked underneath all of the trees and called for her around all of the bushes. What if she found another nice little girl to feed her at night? What if she ran away because she didn't like the things Liesl was bringing her? That cloud of doubt grew denser as Liesl feared that another animal might have caught her poor, innocent cat...

She could just imagine a vicious green monster with sharp, razor-like teeth and slimy scales coming out of the woods at night to take her cat for his dinner.

What if there really _was_ a monster? And what if it _had_ taken Rose away?

Liesl felt her eyes prickle with tears. She began to fear for her own safety, out here all alone.

Frightened for her life, she tore across the yard and scrambled back up the tree, struggling with her nightgown getting caught on the jagged branches. She slammed her door shut and threw the curtains back over the windows, afraid to even let the moonlight inside her room.

Her dress was soiled and covered with dirt and grass stains. Her hair and hands were sticky with sap from searching the pine trees. She had never returned to her room so dirty before. She had even left a trail of dirt on the beautiful peach carpet. How would she ever find a way to explain the mess?

She wasn't making a very wonderful character now. No clever ideas were formulating in her head, no plans on how to escape the trouble that lie in store for her. No fairytale would ever end like this...

Before she could devise a way to hide what she had done, the distinct footsteps of her mother were already approaching her door. The door swung open and her mother's concerned voice filled the dark room. "Liesl, angel, why are you crying?"

Liesl froze in place as the lamp brightened to reveal her disheveled state. Her mother's eyes widened in shock as she took in the mess. "Why, what on _earth_ have you gotten yourself into?"

Liesl struggled to hold in her tears as Mother knelt down before her and began instinctively brushing the dirt off of her shoulders.

"I...I..." She wanted to tell her the truth, but she was too afraid. All she could do was sputter.

Then she could no longer help it. Sometimes even fairy tale characters have to cry.

She tossed herself into her mother's arms and cried the way only Friedrich and Louisa were supposed to cry. "I'm sorry, Mother! I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry for what, Liesl? What have you done?" She asked, pulling away to look into her eyes.

Liesl didn't like that tone in her mother's voice - it was worried, frightened, angry, and upset all at once. A terribly unsettling combination.

Liesl hung her head in shame. She did not feel like the heroine in a fairy tale, that was true - but more importantly she did not feel like her mother's 'Little Lady' anymore. She had knowingly broken the rules, and that was one thing that young ladies most definitely did not do.

She tearfully explained to her mother her failed attempts to be brave, her encounter with the stray cat, and her hopes to keep it all a secret. It was not easy to tell the truth, and there were many problems even being brave couldn't solve.

But to Liesl's surprise, there was a look of understanding in Mother's calm eyes. She looked as if she were even smiling a little...

"I just wanted it to all be a secret..." Liesl confessed, wiping her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve.

"I understand, darling. But I _am _proud that you told me the truth. It's important for me to know what you're doing so that I can keep you safe." She straightened a wayward curl of her daughter's hair, "Imagine if I had come into your room to find you missing - I might think something terrible happened to you just as you were worried for your kitten."

Liesl frowned. She had been so busy worrying about Rose, she never stopped to think of how worried her family would be if they found her missing. "I never thought of it like that." She said timidly.

"Well, you're still growing up. And don't ever think you have to be brave to be special. You already are so wonderful to all of us." She smiled and held out her arms. Liesl tentatively walked into her embrace. She buried her face against her mother's hair. It was slightly damp as if she had just taken a bath, and it had a familiar, sweet smell to it.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Liesl?"

"Am I still your Little Lady?"

Her mother's soft, sparkling laugh muffled against her ear. "Of course, darling. You always will be."

At least she would not be getting in trouble for sneaking out at night. But she was still worried for her little cat. Would she ever see her again?

The next morning, it was raining so hard that everyone had to speak a little louder than normal just to hear each other. Liesl couldn't go inside of her room because the maids were cleaning up the dirt she tracked in the night before. Friedrich and Louisa were taking their naps.

She sat with her head in her hands, trying to look out the fogged up window, hoping that by some miracle her cat would appear on the doorstep. Maybe if Mother or Father helped her, they could find Rose and bring her to live inside the house with them. She would have to convince them to come and search with her outside, and she doubted that either of them would want to do that, especially since the weather was so awful.

But it was worth a try, wasn't it?

"Mother! Mother! Will you come help me try to find Rose?" She called eagerly to her mother, who was gracefully descending the stairs in a lovely red dress and coat. "I think she might still be around outside our house somewhere. If we could just search for her in the daytime..."

Mother stopped on the landing to finger through her coin purse. "Oh, angel, I'm sorry. I'm just about to go out for some shopping... Besides, it's far too dreary out to search for her today. Don't you agree? We'll look for her on a nicer day."

Her voice was kind but Liesl could tell she really didn't want to look for Rose. Mother didn't care about the cat as much as she did.

Liesl looked at the floor.

"Try to cheer up, darling. I know you're upset. Sometimes things don't always turn out the way we want them to. Life is not like a fairytale. There are not always happy endings."

Liesl's head shot up. _What a horrible thing to say! Did that mean Rose might be gone forever?_

But Mother smiled as if nothing was wrong and said, "I'll be back before bedtime. Tell your father when your brother and sister wake from their naps." She took the umbrella from the butler, and she was out the door.

Liesl pressed her face up against the window and watched her walk down the front steps into the car. Even though her mother wasn't going to help her find Rose, she couldn't help feeling a little lonely and sad that she was leaving her now...

She sighed and listened to the pounding rain. It was scary to imagine Rose out in the rainstorm all by herself. She might be really hungry and not able to find food.

_Someone_ had to help find her...Someone had to care as much as Liesl did.

Although she knew the answer would be a firm 'No' were she to ask her father, she simply needed someone to tell her it would be all right. She stopped in front of the door to Father's study. Suddenly she felt uncertain - Father didn't know the story of her cat and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell someone about it all over again.

But maybe there was some hope. Maybe Father would have the heart to help her bring Rose back. Now was her chance to be a better character.

She carefully turned the handle and pushed with all her weight to get the door open. The door to Father's study was much heavier than the rest of the doors in the house.

Usually she wasn't allowed inside, and for a moment she thought the look of surprise on her father's face was a look of anger. She was about to close the door and run back out when he quickly stood up from his desk and asked her, "Oh, Liesl... Did you need something?"

She tried to think of what she wanted to say, but she could feel the tears in her eyes again, and that was too distracting. "I wanted...to...to.."

He moved around the side of the desk. "What, dear?" However slight the hint of impatience was in his voice, it was enough to send Liesl's fragile sensitivity into distress.

She ran into the room towards her father, crying helplessly, "I want to find Rose!"

He looked taken aback as she flung herself into him. "You want to find _who_? Darling, what are you talking about?"

Her father looked all watery as she stared up at him through teary eyes. "I want to find Rose...she's my cat - and she's nowhere to be found!"

She heard his heavy sigh right before he lifted her from the ground. "Ahh, yes. I believe your mother told me something about this cat."

Liesl was slightly frustrated with Mother for telling him about her secret. But she was too upset right now to think about it.

"Shh, shh. Now, there's no need to cry about it." He held her tightly and patted her back until she settled down. Liesl suddenly felt exhausted as the last of her tears melted away from her eyes. She felt her father walk towards the window, but she could hardly move, she was suddenly so limp and tired.

"But I have to find her b..because she needs me to feed her..." She argued weakly, not even bothering to lift her head from his shoulder.

To her surprise, her father was laughing. "I don't think she needs any humans to feed her, darling."

Liesl lifted her head up to look at him, "What do you mean?"

He looked out the rain-streaked window into the yard, and she turned her head to look, too, even though she didn't know exactly what he was looking at.

"Well, stray cats know how to handle themselves in the wild. They don't rely on us like house cats do."

"Really?"

"Yes, and they're very smart. She would know if she needed to move somewhere else if she thought being here any longer wasn't safe. It had nothing to do with you, darling."

"Oh." Liesl didn't tell her father, but his words made her feel much better about the situation. Rose was able to find food all on her own... She wasn't lost or lonely or scared. Her father said she was very smart; she would know what to do to make herself safe.

Liesl could tell her father was looking at her. She shyly turned to catch his eye and noticed he had that look on his face that suggested he was very near to laughing, but holding it back.

"Don't worry yourself over that little cat anymore, alright?" He told her as he gently set her down on the floor again.

"I'll try." She said quietly.

"Good."

It would not be a while before she had her father's undivided attention again. She might as well ask him something she had been meaning to for a long time. "Father?"

"Hmm?"

"Will I ever get to look through a 'rose-colored spyglass' like mother does?"

He laughed at her. But not in a mean way. She could tell when Father was laughing in the mean way.

"I believe you already have." He said, smiling mysteriously at her.

Liesl was very confused.

But Father didn't look like he was about to explain anything to her. Instead, he sat back down in his chair and sighed. "Now run along. I have a lot of work to get done before your brother and sister wake up."

She skipped back across the room, somehow knowing that the door wouldn't feel half as heavy as it did when she first pushed it open.

How come she hadn't noticed how pretty the color of the red carpet was when she had come in?

It was just like the red of her mother's dress.

The red of a rose.


	2. Going, Going, Gone

**Chapter 2: Going, Going, Gone **

**An Excerpt from Friedrich's childhood**

_I imagined Friedrich to be a bit out of place while growing up when he was younger. He was caught between two sisters, with a little brother who was still too young to enjoy the things he did. I thought of his age difference with Liesl and how that probably made him feel insecure, as well as the recurring theme of a need for attention in a group of siblings._

* * *

He was tired from running.

No matter how many times they raced the distance of the yard, he would never catch up with Liesl. She was always the first one to reach the pear-shaped tree with the little white blossoms on it.

It always looked like such a short run when he first started out, but then halfway across, he would get more and more tired. Once he saw Liesl laugh and run even faster, his feet would give up.

"I'm a natural born runner!" She would say to him. And then she would scrunch up her shoulders and smile with that goofy, googly grin, and her eyes would get all wide and wild. She was so silly. That was what he and Louisa called her - their silly sister.

Liesl asked him if he wanted to race her again. He told her he wanted to rest for a while, but really he wasn't going to try again.

Hopefully she wouldn't get mad at him.

Liesl didn't get mad easily. She usually just forgot about things.

It was much easier to make Louisa mad than Liesl. The other boys were always telling Friedrich how they were afraid of their older brothers and sisters. Friedrich was too embarrassed to tell them that he was actually more afraid of his younger sister. But at least he knew he could beat Louisa in a race. And of course he could always beat Kurt at anything. But that didn't count. After all, Kurt was still too young to even walk right without falling.

But Mother was expecting_ another_ baby any day now. Soon there would be another brother or sister that he could easily beat at every game.

Friedrich was hoping this new baby would be different than the others. Sometimes it was hard to find a friend who wanted to do the things he wanted to do. Father always told him that when Kurt grew up he would want to do 'boy things' with Friedrich. Running was the only thing Liesl wanted to do that Friedrich really enjoyed. And until Kurt was big enough, she was his only opponent.

If they weren't running outside, he had to settle for playing tea party with Liesl or being Louisa's make-believe puppy.

Friedrich was always wishing he had a puppy of his own. But Louisa never wanted to play the puppy. She only wanted to be the owner. That was because she was bossy.

It would have been better to have a real puppy, anyhow. Louisa wouldn't make a very obedient pet.

Maybe one day he could have a real dog like some of his friends. That would be grand.

Friedrich collapsed under the shade of an apple tree and worked his fingers through the laces of his boots. Every time he got one lace loose, he kept coming across little knots that were impossible to unravel. Then he remembered that his father had been the one to tie them that morning. Sometimes his father did strange things to the knots instead of tying them normally.

And when that happened, his father was the only one who was able to untie them properly.

He looked up at the sound of his parents and Uncle Max laughing on the terrace. They didn't like it when the children interrupted them while they were talking, but they seemed to be in good spirits right now. It wouldn't be a bother if he asked his father to untie his laces.

He got to his feet and tore across the lawn towards the steps. "Friedrich, are you ready to race again?" Liesl asked from the bench by the lake.

"Uh..no, not yet. I need to..uh, fix my shoes." It looked like he was stuck. He should have been more careful not to run in front of her. Then he could have said his feet were hurting. That was usually what he said when he didn't want to race Liesl.

"Well, hurry up because I'm simply _bursting _with energy!" She said excitedly, jumping from her seat and flailing her arms like a bird. Louisa giggled.

_Oh, great. _

Friedrich slumped up the steps to the porch only to find that his father was gone. "Well, well. Young Friedrich's come to join us." Uncle Max said with a smile.

"Hello, sweetheart." Mother said as she shifted Kurt on her lap.

"Do you know where Father went?" Friedrich asked, veering his head to look through the open door to the house.

"He went inside to take a phone call. Why?" Mother answered, giggling as Kurt swatted at her hair. It bothered Friedrich the way she never seemed to give him her full concentration while she was holding Kurt.

"I just wanted him to untie my bootlaces." He mumbled in reply, beginning to back down the steps again. This could be the perfect excuse to get out of another race with Liesl. His shoes were too uncomfortable and no one but father could untie them.

"Oh, that's not a problem for me, darling. I'll untie them for you." His mother said cheerfully as she held Kurt up for Uncle Max. "Max, will take little Kurt for a walk?"

"Why, certainly!" He grunted with the weight of the toddler as he picked him up. "Why, you're heavy as a brick..." He added under his breath. Kurt just grinned and made one of his ridiculous spluttering noises that Louisa always said made him sound like a pig. Mother always got angry with her when she said that.

Friedrich stifled a laugh as he caught Uncle Max's words and watched as his brother was carried down into the yard with the girls. He looked back at Mother where she sat, dusting off her lap.

"Come over here, let's see them." She motioned for him, and he shuffled over to her and sat himself down in the chair beside her.

He watched as she made the same maneuvers he had earlier, undoing one lace, then encountering one of those pesky little knots that seemed to turn up everywhere. Her wedding ring was very sparkly in the sunlight, so he just watched that instead as she moved her hands. If she turned it just the right way, it made little rainbows dance across his arm.

"Oh, dear." She said softly. But she didn't sound upset when she said it, just... sort of tired. He looked up at her. She had that little smile on her face that she always got whenever she found that she couldn't untie his laces. "Your father tied these, didn't he?" She asked knowingly.

"Yes..." He didn't understand why she always found his bootlaces so amusing. What could be so funny when it was impossible to untie his boots?

Mother stood from her chair very slowly. Her belly was so big now that she took almost seven seconds just to stand up!

She patted his shoulder and said lightly, "I'll be right back, dear."

Friedrich turned his head to watch her disappear into the house.

He swung his legs over the end of the chair, making the loose laces snap against the leg of the table as he moved them.

He could feel his face growing red under the heat of the sun. If he touched the top of his head, he was certain that his hair would burn his hand.

In the yard, he could hear Louisa and Kurt giggling. Kurt was picking up dead grass and throwing it on Uncle Max.

Friedrich rolled his eyes. Why did they think _everything _Kurt did was so funny? And why wasn't Uncle Max annoyed by his behavior? He seemed not to care at all that Kurt was making a mess.

Liesl was dancing around next to the gate of the lake. Friedrich knew she was pretending to be a ballerina. Father and Mother had taken her to the ballet a week before, and she talked of nothing but how wonderful it was since then. Her bright yellow dress flew up in a wide, lacy circle around her when she twirled. Didn't she realize that people could see her underwear when she did that? Even though he had never been to the ballet, Friedrich was sure the _real_ ballerinas _never _showed the audience their undergarments.

He turned at the sound of footsteps behind him, expecting it to be Mother. But it was just Frau Schmidt.

She cocked her head sideways to look into his face, and he self-consciously turned a little. "Why, Friedrich... that awful mug on your handsome little face... Whatever could be the cause of it on this lovely day?" She began clearing the plates and glasses from the table and setting them on her big silver tray.

How could he even begin to explain to Frau Schmidt all of his problems? Adults rarely understood children's problems anyway, even when they said they did.

So he didn't answer her... even though Father always told him it was rude not to answer someone when they asked you a question.

Only the sound of clinking glasses could be heard.

But Frau Schmidt didn't get angry with him. She just kept on talking. "Your sisters and brother seem to be having a splendid time. Why don't you join them?"

He didn't want to tell her that he was afraid of racing Liesl. And he certainly wasn't about to reveal his displeasure concerning Kurt and Louisa either.

"Because my feet hurt, and I wanted to take my boots off for a while." At least it was half the truth.

His voice had sounded very much like he was whining. He didn't mean for it to sound that way, but whenever he spoke about something that was bothering him, it always had that same rude tone to it. He was lucky that Frau Schmidt didn't notice what his voice sounded like.

He had to be very careful not to whine around Father. Father would reprimand him and tell him that complaining was immature.

Frau Schmidt stopped clinking the plates around to push back the gray wisps of hair from her forehead with a sigh. She didn't seem very pleased.

"Well, why don't you run up and fetch yourself a new pair, Friedrich?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Because if I try to go up the stairs with my laces half-way untied, I might trip!"

"What's going on out here?"

Friedrich jerked his head back at the sound of his father's voice. He didn't sound angry yet, just concerned.

Frau Schmidt spoke first. "Oh, Captain... Your poor son here appears to be a prisoner to his boots, again. You wouldn't have been using his laces to practice your 'Angler's loop' would you?"

Father looked confused for a moment, then he caught Friedrich's eye and smirked.

"It's not funny - I'm stuck!" Friedrich protested, stamping his feet on the ground for emphasis.

Frau Schmidt shot him a look of surprise, then turned back to the Captain. "Perhaps it's about time you taught him how to tie his own laces."

"I know how to tie my own laces!" Friedrich piped up again. "I only ask Father to tie them when I want to be sure they don't come undone."

Frau Schmidt carried her tray to the door, calling back over her shoulder, "Then perhaps your father should learn to tie knots the _proper _way, assuming he is _not _on his ships any longer."

Father walked over to where Friedrich was sitting and knelt down on one knee in front of his chair. "It's really just second-nature. I didn't mean to -" He began to explain, but Frau Schmidt was already inside.

"Ah, well." He sighed as he quickly untied the knots. Friedrich always tried to watch how his father undid them, but he always went so fast, and it was far too difficult to remember how it was done. "There you go, son."

"Father, can't you show me how to untie them the way you do?" He asked pleadingly, as he kicked the boots off his feet.

"You would need to know how to _tie _them first, Friedrich." Father said smartly as he stood up.

"Can't you teach me?" Friedrich begged once more.

Father gave him the look that meant to settle down. Friedrich quickly closed his mouth.

"Maybe someday when you're a little older. It's a bit too complicated for a five-year-old, and you've only just turned five." He turned to look over at Uncle Max playing with the children.

Friedrich slouched in his chair while his father's back was turned.

"Friedrich, sit up straight!" Mother's voice suddenly came from behind him. She was always telling him that, even when he thought she wasn't watching.

Liesl came running up the steps, shouting enthusiastically, "Mother! Did you see me dancing? Don't I look just like the ballerinas on stage?"

Mother nodded as she came forward to stand beside father. "Yes, you dance beautifully, dear!" She said with a happy laugh. She sounded like she really meant it, too.

Friedrich thought she should have mentioned something to Liesl about seeing under her dress. But Mother never seemed to have anything negative to say to Liesl.

"What happened to Friedrich's shoes?" Liesl asked, pushing her way between her parents to stare at her brother.

"They were hurting me." Friedrich said defensively. He didn't like the way she was looking at him. He could tell she didn't believe him.

"I think your brother wants to rest for a while." Mother said, brushing back Liesl's hair.

"But he said he would race me again." Now Liesl sounded like she was whining.

"You always have tomorrow." Father told her quellingly.

She pouted, but she was smart enough to stop talking about it.

Friedrich was still a little worried, though. Liesl forgot about things quite often, but he didn't think she would forget about this. He would have to think up another excuse tomorrow.

At dinner, Friedrich still wasn't in a very good mood. Liesl was only talking to the adults like she was something important, and Louisa kept making faces at him from across the table.

Whenever Uncle Max was at the table, it was easier to get away with things without Mother and Father noticing.

If Louisa wanted to be rude to him, then he was going to be rude back! After every face she made, he mirrored it back at her.

If she made googly eyes, he made googly eyes.

If she scrunched up her nose, he scrunched up his nose.

If she puffed up her cheeks, he puffed up his cheeks.

Then she stuck out her tongue and rolled it up. How strange!

Friedrich tried to figure out how she could do that, but he couldn't manage it himself. Could it be that there _was_ something Louisa could do that he couldn't?

She cackled at him as she watched him struggle to copy her. When he gave up, she grinned and waggled her head.

This was very upsetting.

Friedrich slouched in his chair and waited for his mother to tell him to straighten up, but even she didn't notice him. She was too busy wiping away the applesauce that was smudged on the front of Kurt's shirt.

If he wasn't wanted at the table, then he didn't have to be at the table.

He looked right and left to be sure no one was looking, and he slowly slid down from his chair onto the floor.

He pulled the tablecloth over his head and scooted underneath the table.

He could see Louisa's short little legs swinging back and forth, Liesl's legs crossed daintily, Uncle Max and Father's identical shiny black shoes, and Mother's light purple heels with the jewels on them.

He covered his mouth to keep from laughing. It was much more fun being under the table than up above it!

Everyone's voices were slightly muffled so they were funny to listen to. They must have had no idea where he'd gone to.

Then Mother lowered Kurt onto the floor next to her chair. Kurt was looking right at him. He smiled.

Friedrich brought his finger up to his lips to tell Kurt to be quiet, but his brother didn't understand the gesture.

"Gabalagah!" Kurt shouted in baby talk.

Friedrich made an angry face, but Kurt merely laughed at him. He had a very loud laugh.

"What's so funny?" He heard Mother ask Kurt, but she was laughing herself.

"Kah Kah?" Kurt pointed to something on the table, now distracted. "Kah Kah?" He repeated the phrase.

Friedrich watched Mother's hand come down to give his brother a small piece of a cookie. It was the kind that looked sort of like a waffle. Those were Friedrich's favorite.

He crawled slightly closer to where Kurt stood and opened his hand. "Hey, Kurt...can I have your cookie?" He made sure to smile at him. Babies usually did what you asked them to if you smiled.

Kurt looked down at the cookie in his hand and back at Friedrich. Then he stuffed half of it in his mouth.

Friedrich groaned.

It was only after Kurt pulled it back out of his mouth that he decided to share it with his brother.

"Yucch! Get that away from me! I don't want it now - it has your germs on it!" He hissed, trying to stay quiet, but Louisa poked her head under to see what was going on.

"Friedrich, what are you doing under the table! _Mother, Friedrich's under the table_!" She always made her voice all sing-songy whenever she was trying to get him in trouble.

Friedrich seethed. Louisa made him so mad when she used that voice.

"Friedrich, come out from under there..." Mother ordered tiredly. He had no choice but to obey her. He dragged himself along the floor towards his seat - now he had scratchy red carpet burns all over his knees and elbows.

He glared at Louisa as he lifted himself back into his chair. Then he looked innocently over at the adults. Father's eyebrows were narrowed. That was never a good sign.

They were all quiet for a few moments, then Uncle Max resumed his conversation and they forgot about Friedrich all over again.

The next morning, Friedrich climbed out of bed, hoping Liesl would be busy with something else and not want to run with him again.

He found the rest of his siblings in the parlor.

"Good morning, Friedrich!" Mother said brightly to him. His sisters didn't say anything. Kurt babbled.

Mother adjusted Kurt on her hip and peeked out the window. "Why, this fog is as thick as cotton! I've never seen anything like it!"

Liesl and Louisa scampered over to look outside, too. Louisa was too short to see without standing on her very tippy toes.

Friedrich was slightly curious to see the fog as well, but he wasn't excited enough to fight for a spot at the window.

"Mama, why does it look all white like that?" Louisa questioned softly as though she were asking something secretive.

Mother looked over at Friedrich for a moment before answering, "A fog is really just a very low cloud. Usually we see clouds when they're very high in the sky."

Louisa and Liesl looked at each other. "You mean the cloud fell out of the sky?" Liesl asked incredulously, pointing at the ceiling.

Mother did that funny thing she sometimes does where she smiles and nods very fast.

"Can I go outside and run around in it?" Liesl asked, eagerly pressing her hands together in a pleading gesture in front of her face.

"You'd better not, darling. If you took so much as one step outside in this dense a fog for even a second, you'd be soaked to the skin!"

"Soaked to the skin!" Louisa laughingly repeated Mother's words. She was always doing that.

Liesl's face fell. But she would forget about it in a minute or two. Liesl always forgot about the things that made her upset.

Friedrich breathed a sigh of relief. If they couldn't go outside, then that meant he didn't have to make up an excuse not to race again!

Feeling a little brighter, he walked over to where the girls were standing by the window. The fog really was thick - he couldn't even see the lake!

Father came through the door just then. Kurt reached out for him as he came near Mother. "I think he wants to sleep." She told him.

Father nodded and took Kurt from her arms.

"I guess we can't race today, Liesl." Friedrich remarked casually.

Her mouth dropped open. He regretted instantly that he had reminded her.

"Oh, no! Me and Friedrich were supposed to race again today, remember? Can we do it inside the house?"

"Absolutely not!" Father said to her. His eyes were wide as he looked at Liesl. He looked that way whenever he thought she should know better. Friedrich was secretly happy that Father had gotten a little angry at Liesl.

"Aw, but I don't want to wait a whole nother day!" Liesl complained.

Mother shook her head. "Usually the fog doesn't last very long. By afternoon it will most likely be clear. You can race then."

Oh, no. Nobody had said that the fog would only last part of the day! Friedrich felt the sinking feeling come back to his stomach. Now he had no excuses.

"Oh, good!" Liesl said. "I'm going to go practice my dancing for a while, then!"

She followed Father out the door. Now Friedrich was left with just Louisa and Mother.

Louisa put her hand on Mother's belly. "I felt the baby kick! The baby kicked my hand, Mama!"

"Yes, I felt it, too." She looked down at Louisa's hand. "Do you want to feel it kick, Friedrich?"

"Okay.." He walked closer to them and reached out to place his hand next to Louisa's. It wasn't a very hard kick, but it surprised him a little, and he pulled his hand back at the brief contact.

"Can you have the baby, today, Mama? Please?" Louisa begged. "I want to see what it looks like!"

Mother laughed. "No, dear, I'm sorry. Only the baby knows when it's ready to come. I don't know when that will be. But I do know that we don't have much longer to wait."

Louisa looked over to smile at him, and Friedrich couldn't help feeling a little bit happier. He didn't really care if the baby was a boy or a girl, but he knew Liesl and Louisa really wanted another sister.

"Ahem."

They looked back to see Franz standing in the threshold. "Excuse me, Baroness, but there is a phone call for you from Ireland."

"Oh, thank you, Franz. I'll be right there." Mother reached for Louisa's hand. "I'll bet that's your Great Uncle Albrecht calling. I'm sure he'll want to talk to you two. Are you coming, Friedrich?"

Friedrich nodded and followed them into the hall.

He and Louisa stood still and watched as Mother picked up the telephone.

"Hello, Uncle Albrecht!" ... "Yes, I did. Please tell Monica thank you for the gifts. The children loved them." ... "I will tell him as soon as I get the chance. Would you like to speak to the children?" ... "I have Friedrich and Louisa here with me."

She reached down and handed the phone to Louisa first. "Hold it closer to your face, dear." She instructed gently.

Louisa grinned as she smashed the speaker up against her ear. It looked really big next to her face.

"Hello, Uncle Albrecht!"..."Uh huh."..."Uh huh."..."Yep."..."I hope so."..."Maybe."..."Ok."..."Bye."

Mother smiled at Louisa as if she had done something really fantastic. Friedrich just didn't understand the way Mother looked sometimes.

She took the phone from Louisa and placed it in Friedrich's hands. "Hang it up when you're finished, darling." She told him softly, and took Louisa back into the parlor.

Friedrich held the speaker close to his ear so that he could hear the scratchy sounds on the other end. "Hello, Uncle Albrecht."

"Hello, Friedrich! How are you, my boy?"

"All right."

"Do you know where your Great Uncle Albrecht is right now?"

"Um, Ireland?"

"That's right! My, my, you're very clever!"

Friedrich laughed. His uncle had no idea that the butler had mentioned he was in Ireland.

"Are you excited about having a new baby in your family?"

"I guess."

"Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?"

Friedrich had no idea, and he didn't want to guess and end up being wrong when Mother did have the baby. So he decided to joke about it instead. "I think it will be a... puppy!"

"A _what_?"

"A puppy! I think Mother will have a puppy!" He laughed. In a way, he thought it would have been very neat if she really did have a puppy. Why _couldn't_ humans have puppies?

"Oh, good heavens."

The sun was shining through the windows now. That meant the fog was gone.

Then Friedrich remembered that after he got off the phone, Liesl would probably be waiting for him. He had to prolong the conversation for as long as he could.

"Uncle Albrecht?" He began tentatively.

"Yes?"

"...Can you run fast?"

"Can I run fast? Well, I suppose I used to be much faster than I am these days." He chuckled the way old people always seem to do when they mention their age. "Why do you ask that, Friedrich?"

"Well...you see, Liesl keeps wanting me to race her, but I know that whenever I do, she'll always beat me. I have to keep making excuses not to do it. I just wish I could beat _her_ for once."

"Ahhh. I see. You know, Friedrich, we boys have a certain advantage over the girls."

"Huh?"

"Oh, you wait and see. I'll bet you my bottom dollar that one of these days, you will beat your sister at that race."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm your Great Uncle Albrecht, and I know absolutely everything!"

"Oh."

"But you can't expect to beat her if you keep avoiding it, can you?"

"No. I guess not."

"You'll be as fast as lightning if you don't worry about losing."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. You just need to believe in yourself."

Friedrich had heard other people use that phrase before, but it never really made much sense until now. "I don't know if I can."

"Well, _I _believe in you. You're a fine young boy; you'll get your chance soon enough. Liesl won't always be the tallest or the fastest."

"Haha." It was fun to imagine Liesl being smaller and slower than him, even if it never really did happen.

"All right then, I'm wanted back at the speakeasy. Now if only I can remember that password..."

"Bye, Uncle Albrecht."

"Goodbye, Friedrich. Say hello to your father for me! I'll come and visit when I'm back in Vienna!"

"Okay!"

Friedrich listened until the weird buzzing noise hummed inside the phone, then he placed it back on the cradle.

When Friedrich saw that it was finally clear outside, he wasn't afraid.

He didn't try to weasel his way out of anything when Liesl asked him for one more race.

He didn't even object when Uncle Max asked to watch them.

Because even if he didn't beat her today, there was always a tomorrow. And on one of those tomorrows, he _would _beat her.

He wasn't terribly nervous when Liesl counted down from three. It wasn't a dreadful experience when she predictably bolted ahead of him.

But he was slightly shocked when he found himself gaining on her as they ran through the grass.

It looked almost as if they might even tie...

Then with a final spring of energy, Friedrich took off past his sister, leaving her a short, but significant distance behind him.

He was doing it. He was outrunning Liesl.

He was so excited and amazed that he didn't even stop when he passed the pear-shaped tree with the little white blossoms on it.

He just kept going and going. And then he was gone.


	3. Partly Cloudy

**Chapter 3: Partly Cloudy **

** An Excerpt from Louisa's childhood**

_Louisa was my favorite character to write in these stories, as she strikes me as being bossy and superior, but in a very lovable way. She is frustrated being between her two brothers all of the time, and is constantly going overboard to get herself noticed. I wrote Louisa as the troublemaker with a clever mind that is far beyond her years._

* * *

"I see a duck!"

"Don't be silly, Kurt. You've said that for every cloud you've seen. They can't all possibly look like ducks."

"I see a duck!" Kurt repeated as he rolled back and forth in the grass with boisterous laughter.

Louisa sighed and exchanged glances with Friedrich. While he could sometimes be fun to pick on, Kurt was often a little pest. Whenever he acted like this, they just ignored him.

"I think that one looks like a seahorse." Louisa remarked, pointing out a thin, swirly cloud above them.

"I thought it looked more like a _snake_." Friedrich countered with a boyish bite to his voice.

"Ugh. Almost _any _cloud can look like a snake." She argued smartly. "Mine's more clever."

Friedrich didn't argue back. He rarely did. Louisa knew it was because he didn't think he could win an argument with her.

Anyway, a seahorse was obviously the more interesting choice. It was different. Different was good.

They fell silent again, and resumed their game.

Louisa concentrated very hard on the fluffy white clouds floating above her. It took quite a bit of skill to come up with interesting shapes, for they were constantly changing. It was especially challenging today, because the windier it was, the faster the clouds moved out of sight.

She squinted at the billowing white wisps and tried to make out what she thought she was seeing in the sky.

Three high towers...

A drawbridge...

A flag...

"I see a castle!" Both Louisa and Friedrich exclaimed simultaneously.

Louisa was slightly disappointed - she liked to be the only one to come up with a really unique shape. But she couldn't help being mildly impressed with her brother.

And she had to admit, sometimes it was neat whenever they both saw the same thing.

"I saw it first." Friedrich said surely.

Then again, maybe it wasn't so neat.

"Nuh uh! I saw it waaayyy before you did!"

"How do _you_ know?" He propped his head up on his elbow to glare at her. His eyes looked like Father's whenever he was cross. Louisa didn't like when he made his eyes look like that.

She sat up straight so that she was even higher than he was. "Because I just _do_." She retorted, placing her stubby arms across her chest.

He opened his mouth to say something back, but just then Liesl walked over to interrupt their argument. "You two aren't playing the cloud game without me, are you?" She looked a little bit mad.

Neither Friedrich nor Louisa wanted to answer her. Louisa didn't mean to exclude her sister; she just didn't like the extra competition, so sometimes it was better to not invite Liesl.

Liesl came up with the _best _shapes. One time she found a cloud that looked _exactly _like a swan. Louisa's stomach always dropped a little when she thought about that swan cloud, and how she had somehow missed it.

Thankfully, she wasn't forced to answer Liesl's interrogation because Kurt had started to toddle towards the banks of the lake.

"Kurt von Trapp, you come back here _this instant_!" Liesl shouted after their little brother, standing up tall, with her hands on her hips.

Liesl thought she could say the things Mother said just because she was the oldest. Only Mother ever called them by their full names when she was displeased. And only Mother stood with her hands on her hips when she was cross. _And,_ if Louisa wasn't mistaken, only Mother used the phrase 'this instant' when she spoke. Father liked to say 'at once.'

Little Kurt didn't listen to his sister, though. Instead, he laughed robustly all the way down to the edge of the water.

Liesl ran down the shallow slope after him and forcefully pulled him back by the seat of his trousers. Kurt moaned in protest, "I wanna see the fish!"

"We have fish in a bowl inside the house!" Liesl reminded him. But Kurt was not easily distracted from what he wanted at the moment.

"No. I wanna see the _big _fishes!"

Liesl ignored him and clutched his pudgy arm tightly with her closed fist. "You're too little to go in the lake."

"Nooooo!"

Friedrich and Louisa covered their ears. Kurt's crying was the most awful sound. It was even worse than Brigitta's.

Lousia had to admire her older sister for putting up with Kurt's swatting little arms all the way back up the hill. Although she thought, maybe, Liesl was trying too much to be like Mother.

Friedrich followed them up the steps to the terrace, probably hoping to take partial credit for Kurt's capture before he fell in the lake.

She watched Liesl explain what happened to Mother while Father took Kurt inside to try calming him down. Friedrich was playing with little Brigitta, who was sitting on the ground by Mother's chair.

Louisa had to admit, sometimes she was frustrated by being the middle child. She had an older sister and brother, and a younger sister and brother. Maybe her parents had never really meant to have her... She was kind of out of place. Their family would have been so organized and balanced without her.

She even felt left out for being the only blond girl. Both Liesl and Brigitta had dark hair. Louisa often wished she had dark hair like her sisters and her parents. It seemed that all the smart people had brown hair. Friedrich and Kurt were blond, and they weren't so bright. Blond was for boys.

Sometimes Louisa _felt_ more like one of the boys. She didn't say it out loud, but she enjoyed running and playing catch with Friedrich more than she liked dressing up in Mother's jewelry with Liesl.

Louisa sighed and picked up her favorite branch. It was nearly as tall as she was when she held it beside herself. Whenever Friedrich was being annoying, she liked to poke him in the stomach with it. It had a sharp end on it, but not enough to really hurt someone. It made her feel powerful even though she was smaller than him.

She swung it around her while she spun in a circle. She spun so hard that her braids started to come undone. If she listened closely enough she could hear a faint whistling sound as the branch whipped through the air. She must have been going really fast!

She halted mid-spin and looked back toward the terrace to see if her family was watching. She couldn't really tell while her vision was swaying back and forth. She placed both hands on either side of her head and tried to regain her balance.

No one had seen her.

If they weren't going to see her from there, then she would come to them.

She took her branch and marched up the steps onto the porch with everyone else.

Only Brigitta looked up at her. "Weesa!" She said with a happy smile. That was what she called Louisa.

Louisa couldn't wait until Brigitta could say her name properly. It sounded stupid when she said it in baby talk.

Louisa sat herself down beside her little sister and gave her an exaggerated grin. Friedrich rolled his eyes and got up to go inside.

_Hah. Who needs Friedrich anyway?_

Louisa studied Brigitta's face. It was very round; her chin didn't point out like the rest of theirs did. She had a tiny nose that was flat like a button, and a small pink mouth that always looked wet. Everything about her was small. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were too big for the rest of her face. Adults seemed to think Brigitta's 'big eyes' were beautiful. Louisa thought they just looked silly.

Brigitta's tiny mouth fell open as she stared right at Louisa's branch. Louisa could tell she wanted to play with it. Whenever Brigitta stared at things for a long time, she always asked to have them.

Sure enough, her little hand reached out for the branch, opening and closing as though she were about to grab it.

Louisa tried to hide it quickly behind her back, but the branch was too big to hide completely.

"Ehhh!" Brigitta moaned as she stretched her arm out for it.

"No, no. This is Louisa's magical branch. You can't play with it." Louisa said importantly, trying to mimic the tone her mother used when talking to the babies.

"Sweetheart, what is that you're trying to hide from your sister?" Mother asked warningly.

Louisa gave her best innocent expression and shrugged as she revealed the object in question to her Mother. "Just a branch, see?"

Mother pursed her lips. She did that whenever she knew something important wasn't being said.

"I just don't want her to get hurt with it. It's very sharp on the end." Louisa added hastily. _What a clever thing to say!_

She even demonstrated just how sharp the top of the stick was by pinching her finger on it. She acted like it hurt more than it actually did, gasping and shaking her finger so her mother could see. Then she smiled.

But Mother didn't give her a smile in return. "Oh, dear. Darling, get rid of that filthy thing... I don't want it around the baby."

Louisa frowned. Mother obviously wasn't aware of how special that branch was. Why did she think Brigitta was so interested in it?

But she couldn't refuse to do what Mother told her to do. Sometimes she did disobey her parents, and when she did she got into very deep trouble.

"Okay..." She mumbled as she tossed the branch back into the grass. It wasn't a problem. She would remember where to find it.

She stared sideways at Brigitta. It was hard to be mad at her when she was smiling like nothing was wrong. After all, she was still just a baby.

Louisa grudgingly smiled back at her sister. She could tell Brigitta really loved her. Louisa loved Brigitta, too. Even if her eyes _were_ too big for her head.

Louisa looked up at the sky as she felt a raindrop land on her wrist. The clouds above her were no longer fluffy and white. They were flat and dark, greenish-gray. In fact, she thought she could see a mean looking monster face in the clouds just then. She was a little disappointed that Friedrich wasn't there to see it, too. That would have been a good shape for their game.

"It's starting to rain!" She warned Mother.

Mother held out her palm to feel the drops of rain and looked up at the sky. Louisa wondered if Mother could see the green monster face because right then she seemed very worried.

"So it is. Let's get back inside before we get wet!" She scooped up Brigitta who shrieked with giggles as the droplets of rain fell on her head.

Louisa held open the door for Mother and Brigitta before she scurried inside after them.

"Muahahaha!" Friedrich cackled insanely as a flash of lightning filled the hall.

It looked as though Father had gotten Kurt to calm down, but Louisa could see that his eyes were still wet from crying, and he looked even more upset when a crackle of thunder sounded overhead.

Louisa grinned. She liked storms a lot. It was even more enjoyable because Kurt was afraid of them.

Liesl was probably in her room reading, and Mother and Father had gone to feed Brigitta, so now was the perfect opportunity to really scare Kurt without getting into trouble.

"Hey, Friedrich, let's go upstairs!" She called loud enough for Kurt to hear. She knew Kurt wouldn't want to be all by himself, so he would have to follow them.

Friedrich and Louisa bolted up the stairs with Kurt scrambling to catch up from behind them. When they reached the top, they each hid behind a door to one of the rooms and waited until they heard his footsteps in the hall. Whenever they heard him, they would both jump out from either side and frighten him. It was one of their favorite tricks to play, and it was even better when there was a thunderstorm to add to the effect.

Louisa hissed with silent laughter as she heard Kurt's pitter patter of nervous feet across the floor.

He sounded scared already.

Right when the thunder crashed, Friedrich and Louisa threw open their doors. Friedrich made his best scary cackling noises and Louisa roared like an angry lion.

But Kurt was not there to be scared.

"Hey...where did he go?" Friedrich asked, looking left and right.

"I know I heard him just a second ago..." Louisa whispered as she walked towards the door to the boys' room.

"BOO!" Kurt's door flew open and Louisa barely had time to see her little brother's attempt at a scary face before she let out a yelp of surprise. Behind her, Friedrich laughed at her reaction.

"Ha ha! I scared you!" Kurt clapped his hands and pointed at her the way she used to point at _him _when he got scared.

Louisa wanted to scream. She wanted to push Kurt into the wall. She wanted to stick out her tongue at Friedrich for laughing at her.

But she didn't do any of those things. She just crossed her arms and stamped her foot.

How could she have let dumb little Kurt frighten her half to death? And how come Friedrich hadn't been scared, too?

"Hmph." She stuck her nose up in the air and turned her back on her brothers. "I wasn't _really _scared. I was just pretending. Nothing scares me."

"You were _too _scared! You screamed really loud!" Friedrich said pointedly. Kurt looked so proud of himself. They made her so mad...

Then she had an idea. She could get _them _into trouble. She was going to make them pay!

"Well, I bet _you two _would be too scared to do what _I'm _about to do."

Kurt was looking worried again, but Friedrich looked curious. "What are you going to do?" He asked.

Louisa didn't tell them that she wasn't sure just yet. She just walked along through the hall, trying to make something up as she went. Then she came across the door to her parents' room. No one was ever allowed in there unless it was an emergency. If she went inside and somehow got her brothers distracted, she could make an escape and then _they_ would get in trouble for being somewhere they weren't supposed to be!

She gave them both an evil grin as she slowly pushed down the handle to their parents' room. Sometimes it was locked, but today it wasn't.

Friedrich and Kurt looked at each other, then Kurt backed away. "But Louisa, we're not allowed in Mother and Father's room. We'll get in trouble if we go in, and so will you!"

"Are you _afraid _of getting into trouble?" She asked tauntingly as she crossed onto the carpet on the other side of the door.

Friedrich puffed himself up and shook his head, but behind him, Kurt nodded earnestly.

"Well, come on, then." She dared as she entered the dark room. Friedrich tentatively followed.

Kurt didn't look like he wanted to come, but he had no choice because he didn't want to be all alone in the hall.

Lightning flashed as the door slammed behind them. Kurt held his hands over his ears as the thunder boomed even louder than it had before.

Louisa stopped in front of her parents' closet door. It reminded her of one time when Father and Uncle Max were talking about the Navy; Uncle Max said that Father had 'skeletons in his closet.' She wondered if that were really true, or if it was just a joke. Maybe Uncle Max was just trying to scare Father the way she was trying to scare her brothers. She hoped Uncle Max knew it was useless to try and scare Father. Nothing scared him. Louisa liked to think she was just as brave as Father.

But skeletons _were_ very creepy. In her opinion, they were creepier than ghosts and monsters and even witches. She couldn't help being a little bit curious to see if there really was a skeleton in that closet...

"Why are you looking in the closet? There's just clothes in there." Friedrich said slowly as they peered into the small dark space. He still sounded a little nervous.

Louisa proved that she wasn't afraid by stuffing herself right through the clothes.

She felt around.

A silky skirt...a leather belt...a coat with buttons down the front... All very normal, closet-y type things.

She didn't feel any bones. There must not have been any skeletons in that closet after all. She came back out.

Seeing his sister return unharmed, Kurt grinned and copied the way she had snuck through the clothes. He laughed as the top of his body was concealed by the hanging clothing. Only his chubby legs were visible. His laughter sounded all muffled and funny when he was inside there.

Louisa thought briefly of closing the door on him while he was hidden, but then she thought that would be too mean. So she let him come out before shutting the door.

She didn't even hesitate before running over to the bed. "I bet you're too scared to go under the bed, Kurt." She said quietly as she lifted the sheet to peek underneath.

Friedrich lowered himself to lay on his belly on the floor next to Louisa. "It's reeeeally dark under there..." He added. But he didn't sound scared anymore. Louisa frowned at him. He wasn't supposed to be braver than her!

"I bet there's all kinds of monsters under there!" She said in a mystical voice, looking back at Kurt. "A big furry black one with sharp, jagged claws...a slimy green one with glowing yellow eyes...and a slithery red serpent that breathes fire from its mouth!"

"Yeah, a big bed like this has probably got a whole family of monsters!" Friedrich said excitedly.

Louisa snickered wickedly, "And those monsters laid eggs that are about to hatch _more _monsters!"

Kurt's little face was all scrunched up and his eyebrows were so narrow that Louisa could barely see into his eyes. "There's no such thing as monsters..." He said softly. But she could tell he wasn't really sure about it. Even _she _wasn't really sure right now. And she certainly wasn't going to be the one to find out.

"Why don't _you _crawl under there, Friedrich?" She waggled her head at him.

He pushed himself up to make a face at her. "Why don't _you_?" He snapped. "You're the one who says nothing scares you!"

Louisa clamped her mouth in defiance and bent her head to take another look. Lightning illuminated the bare carpeted ground for a split second. It didn't look like anything dangerous was down there, and there certainly weren't any monster eggs, but for some reason Louisa _was _feeling a little nervous to go under the bed...especially when the thunder rumbled again.

"I don't think so. Going under the bed is boring." She said, trying to make her voice sound brave. "But going on _top _of the bed - _that's_ more fun."

"But it's not scary." Friedrich argued.

"It can be." She said defensively. She stood up to figure out a way to climb it. It was a lot higher than her own bed.

She clutched at the covers as high as she could reach and kicked her feet against the side of the mattress to hoist herself on top.

She laughed as she rolled across the top of the bed. She got to her feet and tauntingly jumped up and down, tossing the pillows every which way. How much trouble she would be in if her parents knew what she was doing!

"I want to come up, too!" Friedrich said as he started to climb up after her.

"No, there's only room for one at a time!" She said bossily. But he didn't listen.

"Liar. There's _tons _of room!" He said as he pushed her aside so he could jump in the center. "Haha! Look at me! I can jump even higher!"

Louisa made a face. "It only looks that way because you're taller!" She tried jumping even harder this time.

"Can I come?" Kurt asked hesitantly, tugging on the end of the sheet.

"No!" Louisa said adamantly. "You have to wait your turn. This is big kids' turn. The little kids' turn is coming up next."

Kurt didn't seem upset like she thought he would. He just sat down on the carpet and waited patiently for them to finish. She was having too much fun anyway, so she forgot about him.

Louisa reached down for the little round cushion with gold tassels on the ends. "Hah!" She smacked it hard against Friedrich's back.

"Hey!" He turned around and picked up two bigger pillows. Before she could crouch down, he hit her over the head with both at the same time. She didn't admit to him that it sort of hurt.

"Grrr!" She gritted her teeth and tackled him from behind, pounding the pillow repeatedly against his head until his normally stiff blond hair was all wild and frayed.

"Get off!" He grunted, shaking her off his back. While she was twisted around, he raised the pillow up and brought it down with a hearty slap to her bottom.

"Owww!" She promptly attacked him, gathering up all the pillows within reach and covering him with them until he was completely buried. She had forgotten all about the storm going on outside.

Her braids had completely fallen loose now, and the hairs on the top of her head stuck up from the static.

"Big kids' turn is too LONG!" Kurt complained from his spot on the floor, punching his little fists into the ground.

"Okay, Kurt, you can have your turn now." Louisa said sweetly as she hopped down from the bed. Friedrich extracted himself from the pile of pillows and looked down at them from over the edge of the bed, his hair all falling in his forehead.

The smile faded from Kurt's face when he realized that he was too small to climb the bed. "I don't think I can get up there by myself!"

Louisa smiled as she recognized her chance to get both her brothers distracted. "Don't worry, Kurt. Friedrich will pull you up from the top while I push you from behind!" She suggested cheerfully. "Then you two can have a turn together without me!"

Kurt's face brightened as Friedrich reached down to grab both his hands. Louisa positioned her hands on Kurt's bottom and pushed with all her might. "Friedrich, you're not pulling hard enough!"

"I'm trying! He's really heavy!"

Louisa had a feeling he was lying. Kurt couldn't be _that _heavy. He was much smaller than both of them.

Regardless, she had to get him up there soon so that she could leave them both here and run away as fast as possible. Mother or Father could come in any minute.

She used all her strength in one final push and gasped as she felt Kurt's weight leave her arms.

"Uggnh!" She heard Friedrich's grunt as he fell back while Kurt lay dangling the upper half of his body upside-down over the edge of the bed.

"My heart's beating inside my head!" Kurt whined dramatically. He looked a little dizzy and his face was bright, patchy red. Louisa giggled at how goofy he looked.

"Hang on!" Friedrich told him as he tried tugging his brother back upright.

Louisa was just about to make a run for it, when she heard the door swing open.

"_What is going on in here_?" Mother's voice came from the other end of the long room - and she did not sound happy.

"Uh-oh." Friedrich muttered as he let go of Kurt's shirt, sending him back into his upside-down position. His face was even redder now that they were caught.

Mother was standing with her hands on her hips, _and _her lips were pursed. That meant she was most definitely upset and angry...and she wanted an explanation.

Louisa felt somewhere inside of her that she was the one who should speak up. After all, it had been her fault that Friedrich and Kurt were in here. They had even told her it wasn't a good idea. She should have listened to them. _She shouldn't have tried to get them into trouble..._

It was very hard to stand in front of Mother when she was angry. It was even harder to have to explain why everything that had happened was her own fault. Louisa was very good at holding in her tears when she was upset, but this time, she let a few fall.

She told Mother about how Kurt had scared her, and how Friedrich had laughed at her. She admitted that she had wanted to get them into trouble out of anger.

She thought she would be proud of herself for telling the truth, but she just felt sort of lousy.

"Well...I'm very surprised at you, Louisa von Trapp." Mother's voice was calm and dark. It was sometimes worse when Mother and Father used their calm, dark voices instead of yelling. "I'm afraid there will be no dessert for you tonight or tomorrow. And you will spend the rest of this evening in your room, until I say you can come out."

Louisa let her head droop as she walked out the door past her mother. "And your _father _will be hearing all about this."

Those were the words she definitely did not want to hear.

Nevertheless, she did deserve it.

After dinner, Father told Louisa that he wanted to have a 'discussion' with her in his study. It had been bad enough that she had missed her favorite dessert of lemon sorbet, but now she had to face her father about what she had done.

He had used the word 'discussion,' not 'conversation;' not even a 'talk'...

Having a 'discussion' with Father was never fun, and it was never about anything good. It was only when you did something bad.

She followed her father into his study, suddenly feeling about three inches tall when she stood beside him. In a funny way, she wished she could have brought her magical branch with her. It had a strange way of making her feel more secure.

But she knew Father would _never_ let her bring anything so dirty and grimy into his perfectly clean study.

Father told her to sit in the chair across from his desk. She felt even smaller when she sat in the chair - it was made for adults. She felt like she was trapped in a cold, leather prison.

She thought he would sit down on the other side of the desk, but he didn't. He stayed standing, and he did that funny thing where he walked slowly back and forth with his hands behind his back.

"Louisa..." He began, staring right at her. She coiled up a little under his gaze. He was using his calm, dark voice. "Do you know _why_ what you did today was wrong?"

She thought for a moment. Then she nodded. She was pretty sure she knew why.

He raised his eyebrows. That usually meant he wanted to hear more.

She spoke quietly, choosing her words very carefully, "Because I broke the rules by going into your room, and I made Friedrich and Kurt break the rules with me."

The corner of Father's mouth twitched. He turned to look at one of the bookshelves on the wall and continued talking, "It is bad enough to knowingly break the rules yourself, but when you try to get others in trouble as well..." He paused and looked at her again, "Well, I hope you understand that's even worse."

Louisa knew what she did was very, very wrong. But hearing her father remind her just how wrong she had been made her feel even more upset.

He was looking at her with his angry eyes, too. His eyes always looked a shade lighter when he was angry. They were like ice.

She could try to defend herself couldn't she? Maybe just a little... In a way Friedrich and Kurt might deserve to be punished, too.

"But Father," her voice sounded squeaky when she spoke, "Kurt tried to scare me, and Friedrich was laughing at me before I went in your room - I just wanted to make them see how awful they made _me _feel..."

Father sighed and finally sat down in the chair across from her. "Louisa, getting revenge is never the solution to anything. It's always more fair in the end to let _me _do the punishing."

Louisa straightened up in her chair. "But they were being so rude to me!" She protested before she could stop herself.

"Then you should have come straight to me." Father's eyes were even lighter now. If they got any lighter they would be clear soon. She didn't want to see that...

"Aren't they going to be punished, too?" She asked meekly.

"No," He said softly, "And I will tell you why..." He stood up again. "Because if you hadn't encouraged them to break the rules, they would not have done it."

There was a long moment where Louisa guessed she was meant to think it over. She knew Father was probably right, but it was still frustrating that she was in the land of trouble all by herself.

"Now, I want you to apologize to both of your brothers..." Louisa struggled not to groan out loud - she despised apologies. "...and I want you to promise never to seek revenge on anyone again."

Still slightly confused as to what the word 'revenge' meant, Louisa nodded obediently and slid down from the big leather chair.

Father watched her climb the stairs up to the boys' room. She knocked on the door and Friedrich opened it. When she saw her brother's face she realized just how much she didn't want to do this. She was glad Father and Mother didn't have to watch her apologize. It was humiliating enough to do it alone.

She looked back and forth between her brothers' glum faces. "Um... I'm sorry I tried to get you two into trouble today." She looked at her feet quickly.

"That _was_ pretty mean of you." Friedrich said. Why did he have to make things so much more difficult?

"Yeah!" Kurt chimed in angrily from behind, still sitting on his bed.

"But I guess we can forgive you just this once." Friedrich added reasonably. Louisa looked back up. Kurt nodded. She doubted he even knew what they were talking about.

She felt a little angry again, but only for a second. Suddenly she didn't feel so upset... She felt relieved.

"Does this mean we can go back to normal now?" She asked hopefully.

Friedrich looked over at Kurt, who giggled and slapped his knees with his hands. He _definitely_ didn't know what was going on...

"I guess so." Friedrich told her. But he had a smile on his face when he said it.

Louisa grinned. She was proud of herself for apologizing, but she was even more glad to have brothers who loved her enough to forgive her. If _they_ had tried to get _her_ into trouble she might never had forgiven them.

But then again, maybe she would. They weren't so bad, after all.

Even if they never would be as clever as she was.


	4. Wild Ghost Chase

**Chapter 4: Wild Ghost Chase **

** An Excerpt from Kurt's childhood**

_I had the most entertaining time writing this story. Kurt is such a wonderful character, and I think he's got a lot to say for himself. I thought it appropriate for his story to be more on the carefree side, without much hinting of moral theme. This is easily the funniest of all of the stories and it made me laugh a lot when I went back to read it._

* * *

Kurt bounced along the path around the side of his house, humming to himself as he went. The air outside smelled like honey and spices. It was warm and sunny outside even though it was the middle of autumn. That was the way he liked it.

Bzzz.

He turned his head at the sound of buzzing next to his ear. Instinctively, he swatted all around him, hoping that he would not be the victim of an angry honeybee.

He slowly continued walking, waiting to see if he heard it again before quickening his pace.

Bzzz.

He promptly broke into a run, huffing and puffing all the way up the path and into the front door of the house. Slamming the door behind him, he ran through the hall and didn't stop until he reached the kitchen where the cook, Frau Tillinghast, was stirring something inside a large silver pot.

She turned to look at the room's new occupant and raised her eyebrows as she saw how out of breath Kurt was. "I can see someone's had a tiring run."

Kurt couldn't even respond, he was so out of breath. He wondered if his breathing would ever go back to normal.

"You look like you could use something to drink." She remarked as she poured him a glass of orange juice. She only filled it half-way.

He downed the entire thing in just three gulps then set it back onto the counter. She didn't refill it like he wanted her to. She didn't even notice.

But then he saw something that made him forget all about the empty juice glass and his heaving lungs.

Frau Tillinghast had made a whole tray of chocolate turtles.

They were his absolute favorite food in the whole world.

She called them chocolate turtles because the chocolate was shaped into little turtles. Each one was filled with caramel and pecans.

He hastily grabbed one off the tray while her back was turned and bolted back out the door.

There were so many on that tray, she wouldn't notice if just one was missing...

He held his chocolate as if it were his treasure, careful not to show it to one of his siblings, or else they might want it. But he had to find a place to eat it before it melted.

The sound of Brigitta's voice startled him as he turned around a tree. "What's that?" She asked in her high little voice, pointing at his closed hand.

"Uh..What?" Kurt asked innocently, placing his hand down so she couldn't see the chocolate.

"_That_...in your hand." She repeated, tapping his hand with her finger. Brigitta wasn't easily fooled.

"Oh, this?" He revealed the candy to his sister's prying eyes. It was already starting to melt a little bit.

"Yes. What is it?" She sounded genuinely curious, but he didn't think she wanted to steal it from him, so maybe it was okay to tell her.

"It's a chocolate turtle." He held it up to give her a better view.

Her hands flew up to her cheeks. "A chocolate covered turtle?" She squeaked incredulously.

"It's not a chocolate _covered_ turtle, it's a chocolate _shaped_ like a turtle." Kurt corrected with a sigh.

"Well, it sure looks like a turtle dipped in chocolate to me!"

"Nonsense - if it were really a turtle, it would be green inside."

With that, Kurt took a bite of the sizable chocolate mound that was the turtle's head, revealing the gooey contents. As he pulled it slowly away from his mouth, a filmy strand of caramel was left against his chin, like a sticky amber thread. With a full mouth, he confirmed gleefully as he showed his sister the hole where the turtle's head was. "You see? No green."

Brigitta gave him her skeptical look. She pushed her mouth to one side of her face and lifted one of her eyebrows like Mother and Father sometimes did. Out of all the children, only Brigitta could lift one eyebrow. But everyone else wished they could do it. It made you look really smart.

Oh, well. If she didn't believe him it was her loss.

"Children, Aunt Monica is here to see you! Come inside and say hello!" Mother called from the parlor window.

Franz opened the front door to show Father's aunt inside.

Great Aunt Monica always wore the highest fashions. Her dress coat was the color of a green pea, and it had a dusting of even greener lace along the high collar and around the very bottom of her skirt. Kurt thought she looked sort of like a great, big, pudgy tortoise herself!

But when she took off her coat, she only looked half the size she did with it on.

Kurt pouted. She was too skinny to look like a turtle now.

Right when she entered the hall, she kissed Father four times like she always did, then she gave Mother two kisses, one on each cheek, then she smiled her very big smile and kissed every one of the children, giving each of them a compliment of some kind.

"Oh, Liesl, you look like such a young lady! God bless her."

"Friedrich, my dear boy, you're more handsome every time I see you, I swear it!"

"Darling Louisa! I hardly recognized you - your hair has gotten so long and pretty!"

Then she reached Kurt. She bent down to kiss his cheek and hugged him so tightly that he felt himself leave the floor a little. "Hello, Kurt! Bless my soul, you're getting so big!" That was always the first thing adults said when they saw him after a long while.

"Brigitta! Oh, how are you, my little sugarplum?"

Kurt wrinkled his nose. He didn't understand why on earth Aunt Monica called Brigitta a sugarplum. Sugarplums were sweet. Brigitta _wasn't_ always so sweet. If only she knew...

But other than her obsession with kissing, Kurt liked when Great Aunt Monica came over. She was always happy. He had _never, ever _seen her sad. He could hardly imagine that she cried at all. She was always willing to play any game they wanted, and she never got tired like other adults did.

But the best part of her visits was her cooking. After dinner, Father would dismiss Frau Tillinghast, and then Aunt Monica would make dessert. She even let the children help her bake. They would each take turns picking recipes out of the big, red and white checkerboard book. Kurt remembered everything they had picked before from her past visits.

Liesl once picked crème brûlée because she thought it sounded romantic. It was good.

Friedrich picked black forest cake because he thought it sounded scary. It was even better.

Louisa picked strawberry cheesecake because she didn't believe that a cake could really be made with cheese. It was the best of all.

This time it was finally Kurt's turn to pick. He knew almost every page of that cookbook, but he never knew which recipe he thought looked the best.

He narrowed it down to chocolate cream pie and cinnamon rolls.

Aunt Monica said they could take a vote since Kurt couldn't choose by himself.

Friedrich voted for cinnamon rolls because he thought they would be messier.

Right after the girls heard that, they all cast their votes for chocolate cream pie.

"Chocolate cream pie it is, then." Aunt Monica said with a funny smile on her face. She looked like she was keeping a secret.

Aunt Monica flipped through the pages of the recipe book to the page with the ingredients for chocolate cream pie. Kurt thought it was kind of silly the way she licked her thumb before she turned the pages.

She recited the list of ingredients and assigned each child to retrieve the things from the ice box or the pantry.

First, they had to make the crust. They had to roll and knead the dough until it was very thin so that Aunt Monica could shape it into the pie tin. Then she placed the crust tin into the oven to bake while they were making the chocolate filling. The children stood back whenever the oven was opened; it was dangerous for them to get too close to it.

Next, they had to make the filling.

When Liesl tried to crack an egg, she accidentally got a piece of the shell inside the bowl. She had to pick it out and her hand got all slimy!

"Yucch!" She moaned, wiping her fingers on the dishcloth. Kurt tried not to laugh at her.

"I want to break an egg!" Friedrich said. He didn't even wait for Aunt Monica to say it was okay before he smashed the egg against the side of the bowl. Out of the cracked egg came not one, but _two _gooey yellow yolks!

"Eughh!" The girls shrieked when they saw the contents.

Friedrich gaped. "It's a mutant egg!" Kurt stood on his tip-toes to get a closer look.

Aunt Monica explained that the egg supposedly would have hatched twin chicks.

Then Brigitta got upset because she didn't realize that eggs were actually baby chickens that hadn't had the chance to hatch.

They had to wait for her to stop sniffling about it before they could continue cooking. That was part of the reason Brigitta could be annoying sometimes.

More things got spilled than Kurt had expected. His siblings were very clumsy when it came to baking! He was proud of himself for not spilling anything the entire time. Of course, they usually didn't let him or Brigitta carry things that could potentially spill.

Friedrich and Louisa started throwing flour in each other's faces. Aunt Monica said they were being foolish and that they were making an even bigger mess, but they kept doing it. Kurt didn't think she got mad enough at them. Friedrich and Louisa rarely listened even when someone did get mad at them, but Aunt Monica hardly got mad at anyone. Father said that was because she was such a 'scatterbrain.'

Liesl tried to act all grown up by cleaning up after everyone and telling them how immature they were being. She thought she could boss everyone around just because she was ten years old. She said now that she was in the 'double-digit' ages, she could start doing grown-up things. Apparently being bossy was one of them.

Once they got all the filling ingredients into the mixing bowl, each of them took a turn stirring it. Before it was stirred, you could see the separate eggs, and the chalky flour, and the melted chocolate, and the sparkly sugar. But after they were done mixing it, you could never tell what it used to look like. It was perfectly smooth, and deep brown in color.

The children watched as Aunt Monica took the crust out of the oven and set it on the counter.

"It looks so pretty!" Brigitta said, pointing at the finished golden-brown crust.

"It will look even better once we put the filling inside!" Kurt pointed out.

"Of course. Everything is better with chocolate!" Louisa remarked smartly.

"Vegetables aren't better with chocolate!" Friedrich said as he licked the chocolaty mixing spoon. He always had to argue with Louisa. She narrowed her eyes at him - she did that whenever she didn't have anything clever to say back at him.

"Don't touch that, Brigitta.." Liesl said softly as she pulled her sister's hand away from the hot crust.

They watched as Aunt Monica scooped the bowl of chocolate filling into the molded crust. It was really starting to look like a real pie now!

Right after that, Liesl and Friedrich topped it with the whipped cream so that none of the chocolate part showed.

"Look, I'm making mountains!" Friedrich said as he used a fork to make the cream stick up in little peaks. Louisa rolled her eyes and said that was stupid, because they looked so much more like waves than mountains. She was kind of right - they weren't really high enough to be mountains.

"Fine, then, I'm making waves!"

Their pie was finished! Aunt Monica said she thought it looked even better than the one in the book because they helped to make it. Kurt agreed that it looked better than the one in the book, but he wasn't so sure that was because he and his siblings were helping. Aunt Monica acted like they were important, but she really did most of the work. They just helped to make a bigger mess of the kitchen!

Friedrich and Louisa were the messiest - Kurt told them gleefully that they looked like flour-sugar-chocolate-egg monsters! Then Louisa told Kurt he was a 'nuisance.' _What on earth did that mean? _

Brigitta had streaks of powdered sugar on her dress, and Liesl's fingernails were caked with flour and she had a dusting of flour in her hair that made it look gray. Kurt wanted to tell Liesl that she really did look like a grown-up now because of her new gray hair...but he was afraid she would get him in trouble for being rude, and he didn't want to miss out on their dessert.

Perhaps cinnamon rolls would have been messier to eat, but it turned out that chocolate cream pie was, in fact, much messier to _make_ than cinnamon rolls.

"And now for the finishing touch..." Aunt Monica said as she carefully placed a small red fruit on the top of their pie.

Of course! How could Kurt have forgotten about the cherry?

Aunt Monica always put a cherry on the finished dessert, no matter if the recipe called for one or not. It was their special tradition. And they each took turns eating the cherry off the top because only one person could eat it.

Aunt Monica said they could only eat their pie once they had washed up properly. Kurt was happy that he had not gotten too messy. He was too hungry to wait much longer!

Friedrich and Louisa took the longest to wash up. Once they were all seated back at the table, Aunt Monica cut them each a piece for their plates. Somehow she managed to make each piece perfectly even so that nobody accidentally ended up with more than the next person. Kurt was hoping that she would give him the piece with the cherry on it, but after she had cut five pieces for all of them, the cherry was still on top of the pie. If he wanted it, he would have to pluck it off before someone else did.

Kurt started to make a grab for the cherry -

"Don't forget to say your prayers!" Aunt Monica reminded them. He quickly pulled his arm back.

Friedrich guiltily swallowed what was in his mouth, and Liesl immediately folded her hands, pretending that she hadn't first picked up her fork.

"Let's say the 'Our Father,' all right?"

Kurt had memorized the 'Our Father.' He did it just by listening to everyone else say it, which was very impressive. He could recite it all by himself if he had to, but it was a little easier when they all did it together so that he could follow them in case he made a mistake. He tried to say it very loud so that Aunt Monica could hear how well he had memorized it:

"Our Father, who works in heaven, hello be thy name.

By kingdom come, they will be done,

One earth basket is in heaven.

Give us this day, our day we bread,

And forget us archruspassess;

As we forget those who just passed against us,

And lead us not into temptation, but the liver is from evil.

Amen."

Aunt Monica smiled at him. He was sure she had heard him praying.

He stared at the cherry as everyone else began to eat their pie. It seemed to gleam under the light; he had never seen a cherry so perfect before.

He looked to both sides to make sure no one was watching, then he reached out for it.

Brigitta's little hand came colliding with his right above the fruit.

His hand was bigger so it knocked hers away, and he snatched the cherry right off the top of the pie before she could and stuffed it quickly in his mouth.

"But it was _my _turn to eat the cherry!" Brigitta whined, crossing her porky little arms across her chest. Her cheeks puffed out as she pouted, and her eyes squeezed into two thin slits. Kurt smiled at her with pink teeth. He gulped the candied cherry down audibly and stuck his fork into his slice of pie.

No one else was listening to Brigitta complain. They were too busy talking about something more important. Kurt didn't really care if it had been her turn; she should have reached faster if she_ really_ wanted that cherry.

Kurt finished his plate before anyone else did. It was the best pie he ever tasted. He was glad the girls voted for chocolate cream pie. And he was sure Friedrich was glad that it ended up being a very messy recipe after all.

When Kurt woke up the next morning, he could hear the wind whistling outside his window. He looked outside to see all of the trees bent over, their scraggly brown limbs reaching out like long, witchy hands. Almost all of the leaves had left the tree right next to the window. It usually was full of big, scarlet, star-shaped leaves, but they had all disappeared except for ten or so. He was a little sad at first, but then he remembered that they would always grow back next spring.

He hopped out of bed, leaving behind a snoring Friedrich, still concealed by his quilts. Kurt shivered a little and wrapped his arms around himself. For some reason, it was always a lot colder in the morning than it was later in the day. Eating breakfast usually helped.

He closed the door behind him and ventured out into the hallway, walking toward the big old grandfather clock at the other end.

Kurt always liked the way the grandfather clock looked at the end of the upstairs hall - very majestic and important. When you got close enough you could see the little golden Roman numerals around the inner circle. When he was hungry, he sometimes thought the circle reminded him of a big white dish with two little knives spinning around in its center. When it rang twelve times during the day, that meant it was lunchtime!

But if it chimed twelve times during the night, that was what Louisa called 'the witching hour.'

When Kurt asked her what that meant, she told him it was when all of the ghosts came out to haunt their houses. Kurt wondered worriedly if their own house had a ghost that haunted it.

How come he had never thought about that before?

Maybe he should ask Louisa if she knew about any ghosts in their house.

He ran into Father on the way downstairs. Father smiled at him when he saw him. Kurt was a little surprised. Usually Father wasn't so happy early in the morning.

"Good morning, Kurt."

"Good morning, Father. Do you know where Louisa is at?"

"I believe she was in the parlor this morning."

"Oh, thank you." He passed him on the stairs.

"Kurt?" Father asked from further up the steps.

"Yes?" Kurt turned to look at him. Father didn't like it when children didn't look him in the eye while he was speaking to them.

"Make sure you get your bath today." He reminded.

_Oh, no. Not a bath..._

"Yes, sir." Kurt responded in what Father called 'the respectable way.' Usually that kept him on Father's good side.

Father raised one eyebrow then continued his way up the stairs. Kurt wished he could raise one eyebrow, too. It just wasn't fair that little Brigitta could do it and he couldn't.

He paused in front of the mirror in the hall outside the parlor. For a minute, he thought he was coming close to getting just his left eyebrow to go up, just a tad. But after a few more tries, he guessed it was just his imagination. With a sigh, he gave up, and entered the room.

It was very quiet inside the parlor, except for the whistling of the wind outside. Brigitta was sitting on the floor, holding her favorite baby doll with the curly red hair.

That doll always annoyed Kurt for some reason. Maybe it was because she was supposed to be a baby, but she wore as much makeup as Mother did. Maybe it was because her hair was too red to be a real hair color...it was_ ridiculous ruby_ _red._ Or maybe it was because Brigitta said it could talk to her, but everyone _knew _that dolls couldn't really talk.

Whatever the reason, Kurt simply didn't like that doll.

He didn't see Louisa right away as he looked around the room.

Then he stepped inside and noticed four long lines of small colored objects laying out on the floor.

She had been playing with her rock collection. All of her rocks were sorted out neatly on the rug in the order of the rainbow.

Louisa always played with her rock collection on the weekends. It was the first thing she did on Saturday morning. She liked to make them into different shapes on the floor, and sometimes she would stack them up and try to make a small house.

Apparently Brigitta had wanted to play with some, too. She abandoned her doll by the couch and scooted over to take a bright cube of turquoise out from its place in the line and rubbed it between her hands. Kurt knew that Brigitta would be in trouble when Louisa came back, but he didn't say anything to her. He secretly thought it would be entertaining to watch Louisa get mad at Brigitta. He sat back on the couch, making sure to kick aside Brigitta's doll as he did so.

Brigitta didn't get to enjoy her turquoise for very long.

"Argghh! Brigitta!" Louisa screeched from the doorway; her hands rose to either side of her head in distress. Brigitta whipped her head around, her dark braids flipping against her face when she turned sharply.

"I didn't mean to mess it up!" Brigitta cried apologetically. She poised her hand above the line of stones, but she had forgotten exactly where she had picked the turquoise from.

Louisa stomped over to where her sister sat and yanked the stone out of her hand. She forcefully set it down in its proper place and looked away from Brigitta.

"Sorry..." Brigitta said timidly, looking like she might cry any second.

Louisa just ignored her as she silently counted the stones in the line.

Brigitta pouted and crawled back over to where her doll lay face down. She picked it up and resumed brushing its glaring red ringlets.

Kurt wasn't sure he could ask Louisa about the ghosts now. She looked pretty busy. Maybe if he acted interested in her rock collection first, then she would warm up to him.

He hesitantly sat across from her, with the rocks between them. She finished counting them and smiled smugly to herself.

"How many are there?" He asked, keeping his voice neutral. He really was curious.

"One-hundred and thirty-four!" She said proudly.

Kurt was impressed. That was probably more than the number of freckles on her face! He wondered how long it had taken her to get so many exotic stones.

"What's this one called?" He asked, pointing at a marble-like reddish-brown stone from a fair distance. He didn't want her to think he was trying to touch it.

"Carnelian." She recited quickly.

"I thought a chameleon was a big lizard thing that changes colors."

"_Carnelian!_ Not _chameleon, _you dummy!" She corrected in an exasperated tone.

Kurt frowned. He had accidently made her mood worsen. She really was temperamental around her stupid old rocks!

He waited a couple minutes to let her cool down before he tried again.

"I really like this one." He said cheerfully, referring to a deep, minty green stone.

"That's jade. They make whole churches out of that in China." She said knowingly. Kurt wasn't sure if he believed her. It was pretty neat if that was true, though.

"I think this one looks like candy." He said, pointing close to a perfectly round neon pink stone that looked almost like it was glowing from the inside.

"That's called a star sapphire."

"I thought all sapphires were blue."

"They are. I have the only pink one in the _whole world_."

That didn't sound very true either.

"What about this one?" He asked about a sandy colored rock with lime green speckles on it.

"That one doesn't even have a name because it's so old. It comes from all the way back in the dinosaur times!"

_Yeah, right. _

Kurt didn't even respond to her this time. He knew by the sound of her voice that she was just making things up now.

But that did mean that she was in a fairly good mood.

"Hey, Louisa?"

"Hm?" She began setting all of the stones slowly back into her polished wooden box.

"I was just wondering about...ghosts."

She looked up at him. "Really...?" She asked with a half-smile on her face. He didn't like that look.

"Yeah. I was just thinking about that time when you told be about 'the witching hour'..."

"Uh huh..." She sounded really happy now. She began to put the stones back into their case a lot faster.

"Well, I guess I just wanted to know if...if you had ever actually _seen _a ghost haunting _our _house?" He sort of wished that he hadn't asked her. He had no way to tell if she was making something up or not. She had just lied about where her rocks came from - it was likely she might lie about the ghosts, too.

She grinned so wide that Kurt could see every one of the spaces where she had lost her teeth. "As a matter of fact -" She lowered her voice to a whisper, "I have."

Brigitta had scurried away when she heard them say the word 'ghosts.' Kurt was glad she was no longer in the room with them. She would probably have started crying, and they would have had to calm her down.

"You have?" Kurt repeated incredulously. "What did they look like?"

"Well, there was one that was an old man with a long beard and round spectacles..."

Kurt thought that didn't sound too bad. That ghost sounded like he would be nice. He breathed a little easier.

"...And there was one that was a lady who was around Mother's age with a big fancy ball gown on..."

Kurt actually smiled. She didn't sound so bad either.

"...And the last one looked just like you... only he had mean, glowing red eyes and he made noises like this - Whoooo! Whoooo!"

"Stop it!" Kurt yelped before she could go on. The first two weren't so bad, but the last one was too scary sounding. He didn't like the idea of having an evil ghost twin. "I don't believe you." He said shakily.

"Believe what you will, I know what I saw." She said mystically. She snapped her wooden case shut and locked it with the tiny brass key.

"Prove it." Kurt said before he could stop himself. Usually Louisa was the one telling people to prove something. This time, maybe he could stump _her._

She looked at him, her eyes glistening madly. "Okay." She said quietly. "Tonight, we'll have a ghost hunt. I'll show you just how haunted our house really is."

_Great. Now what had he gotten himself into?_

Kurt was nervous all through the day, just thinking of what was going to happen on their ghost hunt. As if it wasn't bad enough, Louisa kept reminding him of it.

While he was in his room playing with his blocks, she stood outside the door, scratching at it and making eerie noises.

Then, at dinner she put her napkin over her fork to make it look like a ghost and then made it hover over his plate.

Kurt knew he couldn't back out now or else Louisa would call him a scaredy-cat for the rest of his life. He wanted to be brave like Louisa and Friedrich, but it wasn't easy.

He and Friedrich pretended to go to sleep when Mother and Father said goodnight, but they really planned to wait until the clock struck midnight. Then they would sneak out of bed and meet Louisa at the grandfather clock and she would show them all of the places the ghosts loved to hide.

Kurt had been too nervous to fall asleep that night, and it was lucky, because he had to wake Friedrich up when he heard the faint spell of the clock in the hall. Friedrich yawned and pulled his flashlight out from under his bed. They didn't have a flashlight for Kurt, but he knew Louisa would have one so there would be enough light for all three of them.

They crept out into the hall, and saw Louisa already standing by the clock, waiting for them. She was tapping her foot impatiently. Kurt didn't know how she could stand in the dark hall by herself and not be scared. He was glad he had Friedrich with him.

The face of the grandfather clock sure didn't look like a plate with little knives in the middle right now...

"Are you two ready to be scared?" Louisa whispered. Even she looked kind of scary in the dark.

"Yep.." Friedrich yawned. Kurt was a little worried that Friedrich wouldn't be able to protect them if he was still so sleepy.

"Let's go, then." She said as she switched her flashlight on and pointed it down the hall. The hallway looked a lot longer at night than it did in the morning. They had to tip-toe all the way to the end, so it even took more time to get to the stairs.

"Where are we going?" Kurt asked nervously.

"To Father's study. That's where the first ghost was."

"Is that the one that looks like an old man?" Friedrich questioned. Louisa must have told Friedrich about the three ghosts, too.

"Uh-huh." She confirmed as she padded over to the door to Father's study; her long, floaty, white nightgown making her look slightly ghostly herself.

"Hurry up!" She ordered as she pushed open the door. They ran inside and followed Louisa behind Father's desk.

"Louisa..." Friedrich began, looking back to the door, "You forgot to close the door. Someone might hear us."

She smirked at him. "I did it on purpose...in case we need an emergency escape."

Kurt gulped. He hoped that wouldn't happen. "How are we going to find them anyway?" He asked.

Friedrich was quick to suggest setting up some sort of bait. "What kind of things do ghosts like?"

"I think ghosts like to eat eggs!" Kurt said, relieved to have something funny to help his spirits.

"Hard boiled, scrambled or sunny-side up?" Friedrich inquired, mimicking the pompous accent of a waiter. They snickered.

Louisa scoffed at their conversation and fumbled around with the things on the desk. "We don't need bait - ghosts don't eat, remember?" She found a fountain pen and ripped out a piece of paper from one of the composition books. Kurt imagined Father would have been boiling mad if he saw what she was doing to his things. She scribbled something on the paper.

Friedrich and Kurt looked over her shoulders and watched her hasty illustration. She held it up when she was finished. "This is what the three ghosts look like." She gave it to Friedrich. "I want you to hold it, so in case I get split up from you two, then you'll know what to look for."

Kurt took a moment to study the picture from behind his brother. There was a drawing of a skinny, old man with glasses, and the number "1" on top of his head. The next picture was of a lady who looked like Mother, with a long, puffy dress on and a huge hat. For some reason Louisa drew her arms up above her head. The number "2" was next to her. And the last one, labeled number "3" was a simple drawing of a round body with a round head, and two round feet, and two little circles with sticks coming out of them for hands. His eyes were slanted and mean looking. Kurt shuddered. Her picture was very frightening to him, especially in the dark.

"Are you sure that's what they look like?" Friedrich asked hesitantly. Even _he _sounded worried.

Thwack!

"Oww!" Friedrich whispered too loudly as he rubbed his head repeatedly, mussing his hair.

Louisa had smacked him on top of the head with a small model submarine. "Of course I am, dummy! I'm the only one who's seen them!" She hissed impatiently.

She stood by the bookshelf and ran her finger along the middle row, as though checking the titles. Kurt doubted Father would have a book about how to hunt ghosts if that was what she was searching for. She must have reached what she was seeking, though, because at the end of the row, she said, "Ah-hah!" and slipped out a thin hardback book.

Friedrich and Kurt huddled around her.

"This is what the first ghost looked like!" She said eagerly, tapping on the front cover. Friedrich shined his flashlight on the cover, and Kurt saw the oval framed picture of an old man with a long white beard and a thoughtful look on his face. Above the picture read the words: _PLATO: THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES and other works._

"_Plateau_...the apology of _sock-rats_ and other works..." Friedrich whispered the title out loud. "What does that mean?"

Louisa gave them her know-it-all expression, "Don't you see? This man wrote a _whole book_ to apologize for how mean he was when he was living -" She poked the picture of the man for emphasis as she spoke. "He used to take rats and stuff them into socks, just for fun! And now that he's dead and he's a ghost...well, I can only guess that he's doubled his meanness now!"

Kurt's mouth felt very dry. And to think he had thought the old man didn't sound so bad...

"I don't think this is a picture of the ghost, Louisa. He doesn't have glasses in this portrait. You drew the ghost with glasses, see?" Friedrich pointed out as he held up her drawing next to the book cover for comparison.

"Well, people usually take their glasses _off_ when they get their picture taken! Or maybe he stole them from another ghost! Did you ever think of that?" She retorted. "He _was_ a very, very mean person!"

"I don't think we should stick around for this _Platt-toe_, Louisa." Friedrich suggested as he headed for the door. Kurt tagged along closely behind his brother.

She crossed her arms and tossed the book down on the desk. "I thought you_ wanted_ to go ghost hunting?"

"Let's just move on to the next one.." He said reasonably. Kurt guessed that Friedrich thought there was no way that the lady ghost could be mean.

"The next one is in the parlor, but I'm not coming until I find ghost number one!" She said adamantly.

"Fine!" Friedrich hissed back at her. "Come on, Kurt, let's go get the other ones."

Kurt was hoping they could just quit all together, but it seemed that Friedrich was already distracted by the competition. The doors to the parlor were always open so they walked in cautiously, casting the beam of their flashlight around in every direction just to be safe.

Kurt felt a chill go down his spine as he heard a pattering sound in the hall outside. "Did you hear that?" He asked Friedrich frantically.

"Hear what?"

Suddenly, a soft classical tune began to play from the phonograph on the far left side of the room. Both boys froze in their place, too petrified to move. Then the song stopped.

"Louisa? I know that was you! That's not funny!" Friedrich called out quietly as Kurt hid himself behind his brother's back.

"Heeeheeehehehe!" A high-pitched cackle sounded forth from the same direction, and standing in the entry to the dining room stood what looked like a stubby woman in a long white coat with a large brimmed hat on her head that completely concealed her face. Her arms were waving in the air above her head just like in Louisa's drawing.

"Ahhhhh!" Friedrich cried out loud and raced out the doors into the hall. Kurt clutched to his shirt and ran after him, too afraid to even scream.

They halted at the top of the stairs and stood, breathless and panting. Kurt could hardly believe that at one time a honeybee had made him this scared. Now he was encountering _real _ghosts in his own house!

"We have to tell Louisa!" Friedrich said urgently. Kurt couldn't tell if Friedrich sounded more afraid or more excited.

He wanted to cry. What if Plato had captured Louisa and stuffed her inside a sock?

They turned abruptly at the sound of Louisa pounding up the stairs. "Did you see one? Did you see a ghost?" She panted eagerly. It was easy to see that she was struggling not to laugh. She grinned at them.

Then Kurt realized why Louisa had conveniently stayed behind. So did Friedrich. "It was you! I knew it was you! You just dressed up as a ghost to trick us, but it's not going to work!" Friedrich said enthusiastically, crumpling up her drawing and tossing it at her head.

"We still haven't found the one that looks like Kurt yet." She said pointedly, completely ignoring Friedrich's accusations.

"I don't want to find the one that looks like me.." Kurt moaned.

"Look over here, Kurt, I think I know where your evil twin is hiding!" She taunted as she sidled through the hall near Brigitta's room. There was a mirror hanging in that corridor. He knew Louisa was trying to get him to see his own reflection and think it was the ghost.

"NO, Louisa. I don't want to play this anymore!" He said as loud as he could without getting over a whisper. Then Louisa backed away slowly from the direction she had been headed.

"What's wrong, Louisa?" Friedrich asked worriedly. Kurt prepared to cover his eyes if she was going to try and scare them again.

"What is that...?" He heard Friedrich whisper from beside him. Kurt couldn't look. He squeezed his eyes shut and slid down to the floor, crunched himself up into a ball and covered his ears.

Even though his ears were covered, he could hear Louisa and Friedrich's shouts of terror. There was a rumbling of feet running down the hall followed by the echo of two doors. Then there was complete silence.

Kurt suddenly felt brave enough to open his eyes.

Emerging from the shadows before him was the small, stout frame of his little sister.

Brigitta stretched her arms above her head and yawned, then she gave him a small smile when she saw him sitting on the floor.

He watched as she trotted over to the bathroom and shut the door.

Kurt let out a laugh of relief.

Louisa was sure going to be surprised when learned that the only ghost haunting their house was Brigitta.


	5. X Marks the Spot

**Chapter 5: 'X' Marks the Spot **

**An Excerpt from Brigitta's childhood**

_This was my absolute favorite story to write, that's why it probably got a bit longer than the others. I just adore Brigitta in the movie - she has been my favorite child since I first saw the movie at a very young age. She's always reminded me the most of myself. I wanted her story to be light-hearted, with a touch of sensibility, and also to keep consistent with Maria's observation that Brigitta notices the little things. _

* * *

"What a beautiful color you've made, Liesl." Mother said kindly from behind her daughter as she mixed the green and yellow paints together.

"Thank you. I've been trying to get it _just perfect_ for almost ten minutes."

Louisa peeked her head out from behind her own easel to look at Liesl's palette. Brigitta scooted forward in her chair to look, too.

On the dish was a very bright, spring green color almost the exact color of a peridot gemstone.

"That color is called _chartreuse._" Mother said intelligently. Louisa repeated the word under breath as she dipped her brush into the jar of linseed oil.

"Don't forget to wash your brushes in the turpentine before you use another color." Mother gently reminded Liesl.

"I won't." Liesl promised.

Brigitta watched her mother and sisters stand behind their easels as they painted the scene of their backyard lake. She was a little disappointed that she was still too young to use oil paints, but she was eager to learn next summer like her mother promised.

The boys didn't like to paint. They thought it was too boring. And Marta was too young to even draw properly yet - all she could do was scribble.

Father was too busy to paint. But he drew sometimes. Brigitta saw his drawings of submarine blueprints on his desk one time. He was very good.

Liesl smeared the blue paint at the top of her canvas with a big fat brush. Brigitta thought she should have made the sky lighter. The blue Liesl was using was far too dark. Didn't she notice that the sky didn't look like that? If Brigitta had been painting, she would have mixed more white with the blue before putting it on.

She looked over at Louisa's painting. It was nice, but she made the clouds too white. If you really looked closely at clouds, they were not just white, but all sorts of colors. There were bits of pink and yellow and grey, and even green in them.

Brigitta wished she could look at Mother's canvas. But her easel was turned at an angle so that no one could look. Mother never showed anyone her paintings until they were completely finished. Not even Father was allowed to see them while they were in progress.

A yellow butterfly flew past Brigitta's face, and she felt a tickle inside her nose. "Ah-choo!" She let out a dainty sneeze.

"I think I'm done!" Louisa declared as she put her paintbrush behind her ear. She always did that - she thought it made her look like a real artist. She had forgotten to wash the tip of her paintbrush, though, and a dollop of orange paint smeared into her blonde hair. Brigitta hoped it would wash out.

"Me, too!" Liesl announced, setting down her brush on the table.

"I finished first." Louisa added quietly.

"Now girls, it's not a race." Mother admonished from behind her easel. Brigitta could only see the top of her light brown hair as she moved behind the canvas.

Liesl hopped over to Mother's easel and asked politely, "Mother, may we see your painting, now?"

Mother sighed and smiled at her daughters. "Well, I suppose it can be finished now." She turned her easel around for them to view.

_How did she do it? _Brigitta wondered as she gazed in awe up at her mother's easel.

Her paintings always looked _so real_. It just wasn't possible that they could have been created by the same simple paints and brushstrokes that Liesl and Louisa used. Her painting looked like a photograph of their backyard from far away. When you got closer, you could see the tiny dabs and dots of colors - always in the most curious places; specks of pink in the bushes, orange in the grass, and brown in the lake. It was always like magic when you backed away again, as the colors somehow looked perfect in their place.

Liesl's mouth dropped open in wonderment.

Louisa crossed her arms. "My paintings will _never_ look as good as yours do." She said hopelessly.

Mother smiled as she smoothed her cornflower blue dress. "If you keep practicing, one day you'll be just as good. Maybe even better."

Brigitta liked to think that anything was possible if you just practiced hard enough. One time, she remembered her father saying the same thing to her when she had walked in on him playing the piano. His fingers moved so fast that she felt dizzy if she watched them! She asked him how he learned to play so well, and he had attributed his talent to this same mysterious action - practice.

Brigitta spent most of her days practicing reading. She was getting very good at it, and Mother was constantly telling her to _keep_ practicing. Brigitta asked her if there was ever a time for practice to stop. Mother said that you were never too old or too experienced to stop practicing.

"Let's go inside for dinner while we wait for our canvases to dry - and then we'll hang them up in the hall." Mother said in her famous tone that was a perfect combination of calm and excitement.

Brigitta followed her sisters into the house, stopping to sneeze twice in a row.

"Goodness, Brigitta! That was quite a sneeze - you might have knocked yourself breathless!" Mother said with a laugh as she closed the door behind them.

"Ah-choo!" Brigitta sneezed for the fifth time in a row.

She tossed and turned in her bed, wishing she could get to sleep. Usually she fell right asleep when her head hit the pillow. Sometimes she even fell asleep while Father was carrying her to bed. But not tonight.

She coughed a few times. She was getting uncomfortable in the same position, and thought of turning to lay on her other side. But then she remembered that there was a scary looking shadow on that side of her room. Even when she closed her eyes, she knew that shadow was still there, so she could never face that direction.

Trying to distract herself from her coughing and the eerie shadows, she pulled her stuffed rabbit, Lily, out from under her pillow. Lily had been her favorite toy since she was two years old. She was made of soft lavender velvet, and she had long, floppy ears that sometimes covered her little black bead eyes. On her bottom was a puffy tail made of pure white cotton. Her tail had gotten mysteriously smaller over years of playing, but she didn't seem to mind. Brigitta had named her Lily because she had gotten her as an Easter present, and Liesl told her that lilies were beautiful Easter flowers. Lily could always make Brigitta feel better when she was upset. But tonight she wasn't sure that even Lily could cheer her up.

She coughed again, even harder this time. Now she had chills, and her stomach was feeling a little upset. Even her head was aching from coughing so hard.

Outside in the hall, she could hear the clock chime one time. It was one o'clock in the morning! She had been up for hours!

Fearing she might never get to sleep, she grabbed Lily and crawled out of bed. It was too dark to see anything, so she stood still for a minute, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Once she could see properly, she broke into a run through the hall towards her parents' room.

Without knocking, she gently pushed open the door and closed it with a click. There was some moonlight coming through the sheer curtains, so she could see much better than she could in the hall. She padded over to the bed and stood beside her mother's sleeping form. Mother was less likely to get angry with her for disturbing her sleep. Sometimes Father got cranky when she woke him up for something.

She shook her mother's arm until her eyelashes fluttered open. "Oh, Brigitta, darling, what's the matter?" She asked, her voice soft and scratchy sounding.

Brigitta coughed into her hand and held Lily close to her chin. "I feel sick."

Mother reached down to feel her forehead. "Does your tummy hurt?" She guessed.

"Yes. My head and throat hurt, too."

"Aw, my poor little angel." She stroked the hair back from her face. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?"

Brigitta nodded. She couldn't imagine going back to her room alone when she was feeling this awful.

Mother sat up and lifted Brigitta into the bed to lay between her and Father. Even though it was a large bed, she still felt a little bit squished, especially because the baby in Mother's belly was so big now. But she didn't mind. In a way, she felt safer like that.

Mother put her arm across Brigitta's waist and whispered to her, "Are you comfortable, sweetheart?"

Brigitta nodded again. "Are you comfortable, Mother?"

Mother laughed softly so they wouldn't wake up Father. "As much as I can be..." She pressed her hand onto her belly. "Now go to sleep."

Brigitta soon forgot about her achy stomach as she curled up under the covers. When Brigitta turned to face her mother, she saw that she had already fallen asleep. She looked down to her belly, wondering if the baby had fallen asleep yet.

She turned over to face her father. She could only see the silhouette of his profile against the silvery light from the window. She put her little rabbit on his chest and watched it go up and down as he breathed. Covering her giggles, she brought the covers up to her nose and watched Lily until she fell asleep.

The faint chirping of birds outside greeted Brigitta's sensitive ears as she woke up. At first she was a little confused because she had forgotten that she had fallen asleep in her parents' bed. It was still so early that the room was all misty and blue; the sun had not even risen yet.

Father was not in the bed anymore. In his place, Lily stared blankly back at her with her black-bead eyes. Brigitta giggled and rolled over into Father's space next to Lily. It was still warm where his body had been laying - he must have just gotten out of bed.

"Where did Father go, Lily?" She asked the blank-eyed bunny. She knew that Lily couldn't answer her, but it was still fun to ask her questions. It made her seem more real.

Mother's soft voice came from the pillow beside her. "Father is in the bathroom, sweetheart."

"Is he taking a bath?" Brigitta asked, still keeping her voice in a hushed tone.

Mother looked amused. "I suppose."

The bathtub in her parents' bathroom was so big that probably three or four people could fit inside of it. Mother always said that the 'pH' of the water could never be a decimal above or below seven. Brigitta had no idea what she meant by that, but it sounded very special. "Can I take a bath in your bathtub later today?" She asked politely as she could.

"We'll see." Mother said with a small smile.

Brigitta smiled back and laid Lily down so that her little head was sharing her mother's pillow. She wanted Lily to be as comfortable as she was. After all, they never had this kind of luxury in her own bed.

Her favorite part about lying in Mother and Father's bed was the pillows. Each one had something special about it.

The pillows on her own bed all looked the same. They were all pale pink with white lace and little strawberries stitched into the center.

But her parents' pillows were so much more interesting.

There were four big, fluffy white pillows that looked like clouds. They were the best for laying on because they stayed cooler longer than the others did. They all looked exactly the same, except for the one that had a little loose thread at the end of its case. Whenever Brigitta noticed it, she always asked Mother to cut it off, but Mother always forgot to.

There were also two more white pillows, but they were more of a peachy-white color and they had really silky cases. These were the best for hugging.

Then there were three, smaller white pillows that were bound tightly in satiny casing. They each had a small round jewel in the center: one was green, one was red, and one was blue. Because the jewels could sometimes pinch you, they weren't made to be slept on. They were just for decoration, and at night, Mother and Father took them off of the bed.

The other set of three pillows were gold and silky. They were nice to sleep on. They were shaped like squares and they were stuffed with goose feathers. Once in a while, some of the feathers would fall out if someone tossed one too hard. Whenever Mother made the bed, Brigitta liked to line them up and compare their colors. They were all gold, but she thought that one looked more orange than the other two, which were more yellow-gold. She always tried to put the orangey one in the center because it made things look more even.

Then there were two midnight blue cushions that were shaped like thin rectangles. They each had an intricate pattern of coppery leaves sewn into them. It was fun to trace the swirling leaves on them in the middle of the night.

The one that Mother always slept with was a pinkish-gold oval shaped pillow that had little white cherubs stitched into it. She called it her Angel Pillow. Father had bought it for her as an anniversary present. It was made in France and it was very expensive. Brigitta was very lucky if her mother allowed her to sleep with the Angel Pillow. That was only when she was a really good girl.

And then there was the round, red velvet one with little gold tassels on the edges. This one was made in India, not in France. It was Brigitta's favorite because it was the only one that was a perfect circular shape and there was no other one that matched it. Whenever the bed was made, that little round cushion was always in the very center, in front of all the others. Brigitta guessed they put it there because it was the prettiest to look at.

How could Mother and Father sleep in their bed when there were so many beautiful pillows to look at?

Mother slowly rose from her spot on the bed and placed her feet on the floor. She stood up and draped her silky white robe around her nightgown, humming a soft melody under her breath. Brigitta always thought Mother looked like an angel when she wore that robe. All she needed was a pair of fluffy wings and a golden halo like the angels on the walls at church.

Brigitta sighed.

"Are you bored, darling?" Mother asked with a yawn.

"Kind of." Brigitta said. She wasn't really bored yet, but if she had to lay in bed all day she would probably be bored soon.

"Do you want to look at these for a while?" Mother pulled out a handful of small paper booklets from her nightstand drawer. They looked very colorful and interesting. Brigitta reached for them, and Mother handed the stack to her as she sat back down on the bed next to her daughter.

The first booklet had a picture of a beautiful red-haired lady in a fancy green dress holding a rose. She had bright red lips and very long eyelashes. "She's very pretty." Brigitta commented. "Who is she?"

"Oh, that was from a play that Father and I went to. She's an actress."

Brigitta wondered why she had never dreamed of being an actress before. It looked like it would be quite glamorous!

"Did she sing?" She asked as she flipped through the rest of the pages - most of them were just full of words, but a few had pictures of the lady on the stage with other actors.

"Yes, she gave a wonderful performance. I would very much like to take you to one of her plays sometime."

"Me?" Brigitta asked, starry-eyed.

Mother laughed her musical laugh. "Yes, when you're a bit older, of course."

"Will you take me to the ballet, too?" She asked as she leafed through the second booklet, which was from the Russian ballet. The pictures of ballerinas in costume were so enchanting.

"Someday, angel."

"I want to do something exciting soon." Brigitta said wistfully as she opened a thin paper fashion catalogue.

"Well, we are going to do something exciting next week, Brigitta, remember?" Brigitta shook her head. "We're going to Lake Constance, like we always do right before school ends!"

Brigitta gasped. "Oh, yes! I forgot!"

At the end of every spring, the whole family would drive all the way to Lake Constance. She absolutely loved going to Lake Constance - she thought it was the most divine place on earth.

It was a thousand times bigger than the lake behind her house. In fact, it was so big that you couldn't even see it all at once from the shoreline. Father would sometimes hold her up and point to the mountains on the other side; "Look, Brigitta, you can see all the way to Germany from here!"

She hadn't believed you could see another country from across the lake when Friedrich told her, but when Father said something, it had to be true. He knew everything.

She hoped she would be well again before they went to the lake.

Father came out of the bathroom, dressed in a gray suit and tie. "Agathe, darling, have you seen -" He stopped as he saw Brigitta. "When did she get here?"

"She was feeling ill last night, so she slept with us."

"Ah."

"Father, did you know that Lily slept on top of you last night?" Brigitta asked brightly.

"I _beg _your pardon?"

Mother giggled. "I think she means her rabbit, dear."

"I see..."

Brigitta broke into a fit of uncontrollable coughing, and Mother quickly patted her back until they subsided. "Oh, you poor thing. I'm going to bring you something to drink." She stood up and fled to the door. "Oh, and Georg, could you tell Frau Schmidt to find some medicine for her? She had a fever last night."

Father looked concernedly at Brigitta and nodded. Her parents both left the room.

She finished looking through the booklets that Mother gave her. She watched the sun rise outside the windows. She spritzed on some of her mother's perfume. Then she sang a song to Lily.

_What else could she do? _

She gathered up all of the pillows and sorted them by color and size. Then she started to stack them up in a circle around her. It looked like she was building a nest!

She crouched down in the center of the pillowy wall and chirped like the birds outside.

Then Frau Schmidt came into the bedroom and told her that she had to take medicine.

Brigitta wasn't sure she wanted Frau Schmidt to give it to her, though. She trusted her parents more.

"I want Father and Mother to give it to me!"

"Silly child, it's going to taste just as bitter no matter who gives it to you!"

"I want Father!" She yelped, slamming the little red pillow down next to her.

Frau Schmidt left the room in a flurry, and Brigitta listened to her footsteps retreat. Frau Schmidt's footsteps were very fast and important sounding.

Brigitta could usually tell who was walking in the hall just by the sound of their footsteps. Everyone's sounded a little different.

Friedrich and Kurt almost always ran, making loud pounding noises. They sounded like a herd of wild animals stampeding when they were very excited.

Louisa ran a lot too, but she was much lighter on her feet. Hers sounded like skipping.

Liesl's footsteps were so soft you could barely hear them. Marta's were, too - but she didn't walk around on her own very often. She was usually carried by one of the adults.

Father's steps were steady and smart sounding. His shoes made a sort of shuffling sound, but each of his steps were paced very evenly apart.

Mother's footsteps were the easiest to distinguish because of the gentle _clip clop _of her heels. Brigitta couldn't wait until she was old enough to wear high heeled shoes like Mother. She absolutely adored the lovely clicking sound they made.

She perked her head up as she listened for who was coming down the hall right now. She was very sure that it was Father...

"All right, Fraulein von Trapp, time for your medicine." Father announced as he briskly strode to the bedside.

"Nooo!" She protested with a squeal and covered her mouth.

"What what? You asked me all the way up here, did you not?" He exclaimed, his voice higher than normal. Brigitta thought Father sounded funny when he made his voice like that. She made a poor attempt at stifling a laugh and ducked behind her nest of pillows.

Mother walked in behind him and placed a glass of water on the nightstand. She sat herself at the foot of the bed, rubbing Brigitta's feet which were visible as two little lumps under the covers.

Father set the medicine down on his nightstand and scoffed at the condition of the bed.

"What is all this?" He muttered, circling around the bed to remove the stacked up pillows around her and toss them to the empty side.

"Hey!" She choked out, attempting to tug the last one from her father's strong grip. She fell back into laying position and sighed in resignation.

"Let's see if your fever has gone down." He said, seating himself beside her on the edge of the bed so that she sunk down to the side slightly with his added weight.

Her eyes followed his every movement attentively as he lifted the thermometer and shook it firmly to make the mercury slide down. "Open your mouth." He said so quickly that she just barely understood him.

Brigitta obeyed, never taking her eyes off of his as he carefully placed the end of the instrument past her teeth.

"Ah ah ah ah! _Under_ your tongue." He corrected her.

She winced as she clamped her mouth shut around it. It was very uncomfortable having something under her tongue - it felt like it just didn't belong there.

"Don't bite down on it." He told her sternly. She wondered how he could tell that she had been trying to chew on it.

"Why not?" She mumbled incomprehensively with the thermometer inside her mouth.

"Because the glass will crack, and all of the mercury will leak into your mouth and poison you." He drawled in an elegant threat. Mother gave him a look of disapproval.

Brigitta gulped and said nothing further. She didn't want to be poisoned - she wanted to be better again! Next week was their trip to Lake Constance. If she was still ill by then, she would have to stay home by herself and miss the whole thing!

Father looked back and forth between her face and the time on his watch until he finally removed the thermometer, sliding it slowly out of her lips. He lifted it up to the light and tilted his head upward to read it.

"What's my temperature?" She asked eagerly.

He shook it casually and responded brightly, "One-hundred degrees Fahrenheit."

"Lovely." She murmured wistfully. She assumed having one-hundred of anything was perfect. After all, that was a perfect score on a test.

He regarded her strangely. "That's not exactly where we want you, dear..." Mother smiled at him.

"What am I supposed to be?"

"Ninety-eight point six." he sighed and retrieved the little black bottle to begin reading its label. Brigitta's eyes widened, and she sank down so that her chin was covered with the sheet.

"Hmmm...Two tablespoons!" He cried animatedly as he came across the amount to be taken. "My, my. What a generous dosage for such a... small girl...hm?" He murmured as he unscrewed the lid. Brigitta sank further so that her entire mouth was covered by the sheet.

"Tsk tsk tsk, this isn't going to go down easy," Father teased, sounding all too serious.

"Oh, Georg, stop it." Mother chided lightly, making her voice sound displeased. But she was still smiling at him.

Brigitta didn't really mind all the attention she was getting from her parents. That was the best part of being ill. Anyway, she enjoyed being the victim sometimes.

She gave a well-rehearsed 'woe-is-me' moan of despair, looking up at the ceiling, with her arms limp above her head. She tried to stop herself from giggling, but she just couldn't.

"Sit up," Father ordered curtly. Her giggles subsided almost instantly as she suddenly realized that she really was going to have to take the medicine at one point - and that was not going to be pleasant no matter how much attention it got her.

She watched as Father poured the thick liquid into the tablespoon without spilling a single drop. It was dark purple in color, not black like she had expected. It didn't look so bad, maybe it would taste like grapes.

"All right, open up." he said glibly, his eyebrows raised in what Brigitta thought to be a very intimidating expression.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she brought her mouth down around the large spoon.

"Plaahh!" She coughed and wiped her mouth back and forth on her hand exaggeratedly. Father gave her a gentle glare of displeasure, but he didn't seem one bit surprised by her reaction. He exhaled heavily and began refilling the spoon.

"That tastes positively awful! Are you trying to poison me, Father?" she cried dramatically, the nasty taste still lingering in her mouth.

"Brigitta!" Mother chastised her for suggesting such a thing. Father looked like he hadn't even heard her question, though.

"Are you ready to try again?" He asked gently.

She winced as she stared at the full spoon. It looked even bigger than it had before. It probably wouldn't even fit inside her mouth.

Mother must have noticed that she was scared to try it again, because she spoke in her comforting voice, "You know, Brigitta, whenever I got sick when I was a little girl, I used to pinch my nose when I swallowed my medicine. It helps take the taste away."

"Really?" Brigitta furrowed her brow skeptically.

"Yes, you know how when you have a cold, sometimes you can't taste your food?"

Brigitta thought back to the last time she had a cold. She recalled it being hard to breathe; when she tried eating food she remembered how she could barely even tell what she was eating because there was no taste to it.

"Oh, I see!" She gasped as the memory dawned on her. Mother always had the best ideas!

"But, darling, if you feel you need to...ehm...expel the medicine again, use this."

Mother placed a sheer white handkerchief onto Brigitta's lap. She certainly did not want to get that beautiful piece of cloth all messy - she would have to try even harder to swallow the medicine this time.

"Ah hah, come on then, I can't balance this spoon forever..." Father urged impatiently.

Brigitta tightly pinched her nose as Mother had suggested, then tried once more to swallow the awful medicine. And once more she failed to consume it.

She sighed as she watched the once sheer white pocketcloth become an ironically pleasant shade of violet.

Father cast his eyes upward in exasperation and huffed gracelessly. "I'd like to at least introduce this medicine to your _esophogus_ before the day is done." He said. Brigitta laughed a little bit. She swore that sometimes Father made up really long, weird words that just didn't make any sense.

"I'm sorry!" Brigitta moaned apologetically, attempting to mop up the spilled medicine that never made it in. "It's simply too much to take in at once!"

Father and Mother exchanged glances. "Well, we'll try it with the teaspoon - but that does mean you'll have to swallow it _six_ times." Mother warned in advance.

"Six times?" Brigitta repeated dubiously. Surely Mother was mistaken.

Father explained nonchalantly, "There are three teaspoons in one tablespoon. So, in order to fill _two_ tablespoons, you would have to fill _six_ teaspoons."

Brigitta nodded reluctantly after doing the math in her head. She watched him fill the smaller spoon and quickly place it to her lips. She pinched her nose tightly and gasped as she clamped her mouth over the spoon, finally managing to swallow the dose.

She paused, her fingers still pinching her nose in disbelief that she had succeeded.

"There. Was that so difficult?" Father asked rhetorically.

Mother rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. "You did it, darling! Just a few more now."

Brigitta made a face. She knew that there were exactly five more spoonfuls left. Mother probably said 'just a few' were left because she didn't want her to panic.

Nevertheless, she was going to be mature about it and try her best - partly because Mother seemed so proud of her for just swallowing one...but mostly because Father looked like he was going to be rather angry if she didn't.

She held her breath and downed the next few spoonfuls blindly, trying to think of anything to take her mind off of that awfully bitter taste. She thought of candy and ponies and fairies when she closed her eyes. She thought of sweet things. She thought of being well again.

She shut her eyes again tightly and opened her mouth wide for the next spoon. But it never came. She felt the handkerchief leave her lap, then heard Mother and Father laughing. She opened her eyes.

"You're all finished, sweetheart. You don't need anymore." Mother said as Father twisted the cap back onto the little black bottle.

Brigitta tried to hide her grin of relief. She didn't want them to think it had been that easy for her. "I think I may _die _from the trauma!" She swooned onto the pillow and brought her hand to her forehead in her favorite gesture.

"Where did you hear_ that_ expression?" Mother asked with a giggle.

Father chuckled at her display. "You'll make a fine actress one day, Brigitta." He commented amusedly.

"Oh! Do you really think so, Father?" She asked with a sparkling eagerness, hoisting herself back up into sitting position.

Father pretended to be shocked. "If you're pretending not to be ill anymore, you're even better than I thought you were!" He gathered up the spoons and kissed her briefly on the forehead.

"Now, will you be spending the rest of the day in _my_ bed, Fraulein?" He asked, standing up.

Brigitta smiled sweetly and looked over at Mother with her hands folded.

"I told her she could stay here until she was feeling one-hundred percent again." Mother said as she stood up from the bed.

"Hm." Father looked like he was pretending to look angry, but Brigitta could tell that he wasn't really - he still had a half-smile on his face. "I suppose that means you're giving your bed to me, Brigitta?" he teased.

Mother laughed.

"No!" Brigitta shouted as she pulled up the covers to make a hood over her head.

"Well, now, don't be so energetic or I'll be disinclined to believe you're still sick." Father said warningly, but he was still laughing.

Brigitta quickly lay her head down and coughed lightly.

"That's better." Father said as he headed out the door.

Brigitta was tremendously glad she had recovered from her illness before the trip to Lake Constance.

She couldn't believe that her favorite trip of the year was finally here!

The only bad part about going to the lake was the driving. It took _forever_ to get to the shore. When she was younger, it was easier to sleep during the drive. But now that she was five, it was a bit harder to nap when she was squished between her brothers in the back seat of the car.

But once they had arrived, she knew it would be worth the wait.

Brigitta felt another firm tug at her hair.

"Hold still, now, Brigitta. The wind is making this difficult enough." Mother's airy voice came from behind her.

Brigitta sat very still as her mother's hands weaved her long dark hair into braids. It was a hard thing to do when she was so excited, but pretending she was a statue made it much easier.

There was a fountain at her grandmother's house that had a statue of a small girl on it. Mother and Father always said that the little girl statue looked like Brigitta.

When she needed to hold still for something, she liked to pretend she was that statue on that fountain - with people watching her from all around, expecting her to be frozen in the same position, no matter how strong the wind was blowing.

Brigitta dug her toes into the pebble-covered sand beneath her. It was grainy and grayish-white.

She loved to listened to her mother talk about the real beach at the seashore.

"You would just love the sea, Brigitta. The sea is so big that you can't even see the other side. It looks as though it never ends! The water is even bluer than the lake, and the sand on the shoreline is like gold powder and it glitters in the sunlight." She tugged on Brigitta's hair again, but it didn't hurt. "And you can find real seashells there. You can't find those at the lake."

Mother would talk about how Father showed her the sea when they were young, and how her parents hadn't even let her in the water! Father had been the first person who had taken her into the water of the sea. Brigitta thought that was very romantic.

She watched her siblings playing near the shoreline. Father was carrying little Marta, who was laughing at Liesl as she danced through the shallow water. Friedrich and Kurt were chasing after a big white seagull across the rocks. Louisa was bent over, far away from the rest, studying the stones at her feet.

Brigitta felt herself getting fidgety. She was suddenly overcome by the urge to join her brothers and sisters - pretending to be a statue was only fun for so long...

"I'm almost finished, darling." Mother said, giggling at her. "I just need to tie your braids."

When Mother was finished, Brigitta pulled her braids in front of her shoulders to make sure her ribbons were in perfect bows. If Liesl did her hair, usually they would have to be corrected. But Mother always got them right on the first try.

Brigitta hopped up from her spot on the blanket just as Louisa came over.

"Do you want to see the stones I found for my collection?" She asked, emptying her pale blue bag with the drawstrings.

"Okay." Brigitta replied, sitting herself back down on the blanket.

"I was talking to Mother, not you." Louisa said importantly. Brigitta pouted.

"Now, Louisa, your sister is allowed to look, too." Mother chided as she brought her arm around Brigitta and pulled her close - even though it was pretty hard to get close to Mother when her belly was so large. Brigitta placed her hand on her Mother's stomach, just in case the baby moved around - she didn't want to miss it if it did.

Louisa sighed and let Brigitta look at her new stones.

"This one was in the water - see how it looks blue on one side?" Louisa turned the small gray rock over in her hand. Sure enough, the opposite side had a bluish tint to it. "That's the side that was face down in the water." _That made sense_.

"It's lovely." Mother commented. She sounded like she really meant it.

"I accidentally stepped on this one." Louisa said as she held up a jagged looking brown rock with little orange sparkles in it. "At first I hated it because it pinched me, but then I decided to keep it because it was sort of pretty."

Mother laughed a little but didn't say anything about it.

"And this one is the best because it's the biggest, _and _because it has a scratch mark on it that looks like an 'L' for Louisa." She said smugly, tracing the mark so that they could see where it was. It did _sort of _look like an 'L.'

Brigitta thought that was probably just a coincidence. A lot of rocks probably had markings on them that looked like letters. She didn't say anything to Louisa, though. That would have made her mad.

"Oh, my, it _does_ look like an 'L.' It must have been meant for you to find it!" Mother said kindly.

Brigitta looked at the rock again. Maybe it was more special than she had initially thought if Mother liked it so much. But Brigitta still liked the first one the best.

"Friedrich! Kurt! Stop harassing the birds, will you?" Father called to her brothers. Mother and Louisa turned their heads to look at the boys. They were all the way up on the grass now.

Brigitta was glad Father had finally said something to stop their behavior. She was beginning to feel a little sorry for the birds that had to run away from them.

"Sorry, Father!" Friedrich shouted back. It seemed he was always apologizing for something.

"They should apologize to the poor birds." Liesl remarked as she executed a perfect cartwheel on the grass. Louisa saw her and quickly got up to show off her own skills.

Brigitta couldn't help being a tiny bit jealous that her sisters could do cartwheels, but she couldn't. Maybe if she practiced a few times, she would get the hang of it. After all, practicing worked for everything else, didn't it?

She walked over to where Louisa was doing them and tried to mimic her movements.

"Sorry, Brigitta, you aren't doing it right at all!" Liesl said.

"You're legs are probably just too small to be able to do a proper cartwheel." Mother added gently. Brigitta felt like she wanted to cry. It wasn't fair! "...But you _can _do a somersault!"

"What's a _summer salt_?" Brigitta sniffed. It sounded kind of fun.

"I'll show you!" Kurt said happily as he got down on his knees and clumsily flipped himself over his head. That looked like it would hurt!

"I don't know if I can do that, either."

"I'll help you." Friedrich said. "Get down on your knees, and I'll push you over."

Brigitta didn't move - she wasn't too sure she trusted Friedrich.

"I promise it won't hurt - now, go on."

She really _wanted_ to do it... maybe it wouldn't be as bad as it looked. Carefully, she got down on her knees in the grass as Kurt had done. She closed her eyes tightly as she felt Friedrich's hands push her bottom and she flipped right over her head. She landed in the grass in a sitting position, not even the slightest bit dizzy.

She laughed, "I want to try it again!" He pushed her once more.

"Try it yourself, now."

She was a little nervous, especially now that everyone was watching her. But she positioned herself just as Friedrich had helped her do, and expertly rolled over her head.

"Good job, Brigitta!" Liesl was the only one who clapped for her. The boys were already off doing something else, and Mother and Father were talking to Marta.

Louisa didn't seem to care too much about Brigitta's somersault. Instead, she sat down in the grass in front of Liesl and flipped herself over her head backwards!

Liesl was immediately distracted. "Wow! I didn't know you could do a _backwards_ somersault!" Louisa smiled at them as she dusted off her skirt.

Brigitta tried not to show that she was jealous again. It seemed that every time she accomplished something she was proud of, Louisa had to come along and do something better.

She decided to leave her sisters behind with their complicated somersaults and go see what the boys were up to.

Brigitta walked over to where Kurt was standing at the base of a tall pile of large rocks, his hair shining like the color of a brass horn in the sudden, strong rays of sun. She looked up and watched as Friedrich climbed all the way to the top of the pile and announced from above them, "And now, I have climbed to the top of _Mt. Sinai _!"

"You got that from Great Aunt Monica!" Kurt shouted up at him in an accusatory tone.

"So?"

"Friedrich! Get down from there!" Mother's frantic voice called out from a considerable distance.

Friedrich's eyes widened in surprise, and he slid all the way down from the pile of rocks onto his knees. Kurt covered his mouth to keep from laughing as Mother rushed over to Friedrich's side and pulled him to his feet.

"Darling, you almost gave me a heart attack! Don't you ever think about the danger in these things?" She asked, sounding very out of breath as she felt him all over for broken bones.

"I'm fine, Mother. Besides, it's not that high up. I knew it was safe." He said calmly as she clutched his shoulders and held his head very close to her chin.

"Oh, I fear one day you'll just take off and decide to climb to the top of the Alps! And I don't know what I'll do..." She shook her head and reluctantly let him go. "From now on, you'll be playing _below _sea-level, young man."

"Yes, Mother."

After eyeing them both warningly, she walked back to where Liesl was standing with her mouth agape, watching the scene.

"That means you have to play _under_ the water now!" Kurt whispered jokingly.

"Be quiet." Friedrich pushed Kurt lightly away and situated himself on the ground.

Kurt pushed aside a few of the large stones to reveal a dark, hollow space under the pile. "Look! A secret hideout!"

Friedrich rose to his feet, slightly interested. Brigitta nudged her way between her brothers to peek inside the small cave.

"Let's play pirates!" Kurt suggested excitedly as he crawled inside the tunnel. Friedrich followed him inside.

A voice interrupted before Brigitta could ask to join. "What are you boys doing?" Louisa asked, skipping up to where they were hiding.

"We found a pirates' hideout!" Friedrich told her.

"_I _found it!" Kurt corrected. Louisa bent her head down to look inside the small tunnel.

"That's stupid!" She concluded after her brief surveillance.

"You just wish _you _had found it!"

"No I don't. I have better things to do."

"Sure you do."

Louisa flipped her sunny blond hair over her shoulders and skipped away, laughing at them as she did.

"Can I come in?" Brigitta asked shyly. Kurt and Friedrich looked at each other.

"No." Friedrich said simply.

"Why not?"

"Because girls can't be pirates!" Kurt countered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yes they can!"

"Do you know how to _pillage _and _plunder_?"

"...No."

"Then you'd make a pretty lousy pirate!"

Brigitta made her hands into fists. It was very frustrating when her brothers excluded her from their games. She didn't see why she would make a bad pirate. All they did was find treasure and steal things. Stealing things was very easy to do.

She marched off from their hiding place, ignoring their snickering laughter. She could find something better to do on her own.

Father saw her walking past. "What have you been up to, Brigitta?" He asked. Marta giggled as she saw her approach.

She shrugged. "Friedrich and Kurt are playing pirates, but they won't let me play with them. They said there's no such thing as a girl pirate."

"Did they now?" Father's blue eyes widened in surprise. "I for one happen to have met _several_ female pirates in my days in the Navy."

"Really?" Brigitta sat herself down next to Marta at his feet. She liked it when Father talked about the Navy. She wasn't really sure what it meant, but she imagined it was a secret club of men who wore blue jackets and explored the ocean in search of treasure and sunken ships in a boat that went underwater. Mother told her once that because Father had been very brave he was named the Captain, which meant that everyone on the ship did what he told them to do. It seemed to Brigitta that sometimes Louisa thought she was the Captain of all her brothers and sisters.

"Yes." He answered seriously. Marta's tiny hands grabbed the collar of his shirt and picked at the button until it came undone.

"Can you tell them that so I can play?" Brigitta pleaded as she fiddled with the laces of his boots.

"Well, you don't need to play with them. You can be a pirate on your own." He suggested. That sounded kind of nice. Brigitta liked doing things on her own. Mother said it was because she was independent like her father.

But she didn't really know where to start. "What can I do?"

Father looked around the shore, his eyes squinting as the sun grew stronger. "Well, you can look around for buried treasure, of course."

"But it would take _years_ to dig up this whole place!" She giggled.

"Oh, but you don't just dig anywhere. You have to look for an 'X' in the sand. That means that someone has buried treasure under it."

She was still skeptical. "Do I have to _practice_ looking for treasure first?" She questioned reluctantly.

"Oh-ho, no. That would be a silly waste of time - treasure hunting is an art that requires no practice whatsoever." Father replied, struggling with Marta as she reached up to mess up his hair.

_Could it be? An activity that didn't involve practice?_ She quickly got to her feet. "Are you sure?"

"Positive." He smiled at her. So did Marta.

"Okay. I'll look around for the 'X'," She turned back to look at her little sister. "And when I find the treasure, I'm going to share it with you, Marta!"

Marta clapped her tiny hands together and blew a raspberry. She obviously didn't understand how important sharing a treasure was.

Brigitta started off on her search, heading to the area where the sand was smoother, and there were less pebbles obstructing her view. The closer she got to the water, the nicer the sand was. She waded in the cold water, scanning the sand for the letter 'X.'

She saw a seagull's feather...

A small rock shaped like a crescent moon...

An emerald green dragonfly...

Another feather...

Then she saw a letter etched into the sand! Maybe that meant she was getting closer to the 'X.' There were a lot of letters...

She read them as she walked along.

L - O - U - I - S - A - V - O - N - T - R...

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Louisa yelped as Brigitta bumped into her. She had been sketching her name into the sand with a splintered piece of plywood.

"Sorry.." Brigitta mumbled as she moved out of her path.

"Geeta! Geeta!" Marta shuffled over to her and tugged on the bottom of her jumper.

"What is it, Marta?" Brigitta asked the toddler, though she knew not to expect an answer.

Marta dragged her sister up the slope towards a patch of sand that had been cleared of the rocks and pebbles. In the center of the circle of sand, someone had scratched a huge letter 'X'!

"Marta, we found it! We found the treasure spot!" She dropped to her knees and eagerly began to dig her hands into the sand, searching for the treasure. Marta copied her actions, squealing with laughter, but Brigitta was too excited to tell her sister that she was digging in the wrong place.

Louisa and Liesl came up behind her. "Why are you digging in the sand, silly?" Liesl asked.

"Because I found an 'X' in the sand, and Father said that means there's a treasure buried beneath it!"

Louisa giggled. "That's rubbish. He was just trying to keep you occupied."

In an instant, her two huffing and puffing brothers raced up to the dig site, curious to see what was happening. "Why are they digging?" Kurt asked breathlessly.

Louisa answered smartly, "She thinks she found treasure. But there _isn't _any around here."

"Yeah, me and Kurt didn't even find treasure in our cave." Friedrich said knowingly. "If there was _any_ treasure on this beach, it would have been in there!"

Brigitta didn't stop digging, though. She didn't care if her brothers and sisters believed her. She was sure she had found a real treasure. Father just wouldn't lie to her.

Suddenly, her hand collided with something hard. She reached down and pulled out a small wooden box.

"Hey, she really did find something!"

"I can't see!"

"Open it up, Brigitta!"

Brigitta lifted the thin lid of the box and gasped as she saw the contents. About twenty gold coins and even a few pearls were inside. They glittered radiantly under the sun, so much that it hurt her eyes to look at them!

"Oh my goodness!" Liesl exclaimed. "It's beautiful!"

"There's not _that _much treasure inside." Louisa said. But Brigitta thought she sounded jealous.

"What have you found here, Brigitta?" Mother asked as she and Father approached the rest.

"I found a treasure because I looked for the 'X' - it was right underneath; all I had to do was dig!"

Mother and Father smiled at each other. They looked like they were keeping a secret.

"Isn't she clever?" Father tugged playfully on her braid before they walked away. Louisa looked very jealous now.

Kurt kicked at the sand. "How come _we_ didn't find any treasure?" He whined to Friedrich.

Brigitta tucked the treasure box under her arm and smiled at her brother. "I guess you two just make lousy pirates."


	6. Guardian Angel

**Chapter 6: Guardian Angel **

**An Excerpt from Marta's childhood**

_A minor warning to those reading: this story was designed to be more emotional as it does deal with the death of the children's mother. So it could be a potential tearjerker for those who are severely sensitive. But the beginning half is still very lighthearted._

* * *

Liesl slowly turned as she studied her reflection in the hall mirror. The blue and gray plaid of her pleated school uniform brought out the color of her starlit blue eyes perfectly. She smiled at herself as she smoothed out her fawn colored hair, then bent over to pick up her satchel.

"Oh!" She chirped as the sound of a scattering bead echoed on the marble floor. "Mother! One of the buttons to my blouse has fallen off! Can you fix it?" She called to her mother, who was busily buckling Marta's shoes as she stood halfway out the door.

"Oh, dear. I'll be right there in a minute, Liesl!" She called to her eldest daughter as she helped Marta fit her arms into the sleeves of her winter coat. "Hm, we'll need to buy you a new coat, sweetheart, you're getting too big for this one!"

"Maybe we can give it to Gretl." Marta suggested, pointing at her little sister who stood giggling in the entrance to the ballroom. Whenever someone looked over at her, she would hide behind the door and laugh as though she thought they couldn't tell she was there.

Mother smiled down at her. "That's a very good idea!"

"I hope I don't fail my mathematics exam today." Friedrich muttered nervously as he buttoned up his coat.

"I hope you knew well enough to study for this exam, Friedrich." Mother said with a note of warning in her voice.

"I studied for hours last night!" Friedrich said defensively, "But I still feel nervous..."

"You'll do fine." Mother said reassuringly as she adjusted his tie. "You're a brilliant student." She kissed his forehead.

Marta watched her oldest brother smile grudgingly as he headed down the front steps into the car.

Kurt then rushed up to the door and gave his mother a great big bear hug.

"Aw, I love you, darling," She said as she bent over to kiss both of his round cheeks. "Have a good day at school!"

He rushed out after Friedrich, "I will!"

Louisa raced to the door, holding the last bite of a pastry between her teeth. "Louisa, don't forget you have your violin lessons today!" Mother reminded before she could make it down the steps.

Louisa rolled her eyes but didn't protest. "I won't forget." She mumbled with the last of her strawberry danish.

"Good girl."

Marta began to walk out the door after her sister, but Mother pulled her back. "Hold on one moment, darling, I need to get your scarf - I don't want my little cherub sporting a frostbite when she returns from school this afternoon!"

Marta waited as Mother hurried to the parlor and returned with a fine pink scarf that matched the ribbons in her hair. She smiled even as Mother wrapped it too tightly around the lower half of her face. She felt the press of cool lips to her forehead, a hand's brief squeeze around her own gloved one, and a gentle push out the door.

Marta squeezed herself into the back of the car with her brothers and Louisa. They watched as Brigitta came skipping down the front steps with a small stack of books tucked under her arm, then shortly after, Liesl primly descending the steps one at a time as though she were balancing an invisible teapot on her head.

Once they were all inside the car, the chauffeur drove off in the direction of their school.

"Move over! You're practically sitting on top of me!"

"I can't help it, you shouldn't have worn such a huge coat!"

"Ow! Someone kicked me!"

Marta pressed herself up against the window and breathed against the cold glass. The steam from her mouth made a sheer white cloud on the window, and she drew a little angel with her baby finger. It stayed for a short moment, then quickly melted away.

The driver made his first stop at Liesl's school. She went to a separate school for teenagers. Ever since she had started going to her new school earlier that year, she had been acting more mature than ever. She hardly ever made childish mistakes, she spoke clearly to adults, and she was _always_ polite.

Whenever Liesl got out of the front seat of the car, everyone in the back seat would fight over who got to ride the rest of the way up front.

Friedrich usually won. But sometimes Louisa did. Kurt barely ever did, and Brigitta was always too busy reading one of her school books to care. Marta never even spoke up because she knew she didn't have a chance. Anyway, she took up the least room out of all of them. It wasn't such a burden if she stayed in the crowded back seat.

When the rest of them arrived at their school, they spilled out of the car and headed up the wide stairs to the front doors. Marta was nowhere near as fast as the rest of her siblings, and she usually tagged along behind until they arrived in the main hall. By then, they would have all disappeared in the sea of children all dressed in identical plaid clothing.

Marta climbed up the steep stairwell to her classroom on the third floor. She was almost always the last one in her seat, but she was never ever late. She had just enough time to sort out her books on top of her desk right before the bell rang to start the day.

Class was sometimes interesting. Marta liked learning about animals and plants. She liked to learn about how the weather was formed, too. It was especially neat to know about the weather during the winter.

Marta liked to raise her hand when she knew the answer. It was a nice feeling to have her teacher compliment her, and it made her feel very smart.

The only bad thing about her class was that there was a girl named Olga who sat next to Marta who always tapped her pencil against the side of her desk, and sometimes it got to be very annoying. Olga tapped that pencil enough to make up for how quiet she was in class - she_ never _answered any questions. Marta wasn't even sure what her voice sounded like.

Today, their teacher Fraulein Litchfield was explaining exactly how snow was formed. Every snowflake was different - each one was special and unique. The class got to make their own snowflakes out of white paper cutouts, and after school they would get to take them home with them.

Marta asked Fraulein Litchfield if she could use pink paper to make her snowflake.

Her teacher laughed. "Why, Marta von Trapp, have you _ever _seen a _pink _snowflake falling from the sky?"

Olga tapped her pencil four times, and stared almost threateningly at Marta.

Marta didn't answer. Of course she never _saw _a pink snowflake. But that wasn't the point - she just wanted to use her imagination. She was sure her mother wouldn't have said no to making a pink snowflake.

But Marta never did get to make her snowflake pink. Hers was boring, plain, and white like all the other children's. Fraulein Litchfield had said that all snowflakes were different... So why did they all look the same when she compared hers to the rest of her classmates'?

During the rest of the lesson, Marta didn't pay much attention to the teacher. She was too distracted by the beautiful snow falling outside the windows. When she had arrived at school that morning, there were still some green patches where you could see the grass. But by the time school let out, there was not a blade of grass to be seen for miles - everything was covered in a blanket of powdery white snow.

When the final bell rang, Marta skipped out the front doors of the school, far ahead of the rest of her classmates and rushed to her chauffeur, who gallantly opened the door for her. Liesl was sitting in the front seat of the car, and Kurt was already in the back.

She scooted over so that she was sitting beside him, and he pointed at the paper snowflake she held in her lap, "I remember when my class made those snowflakes." He leaned his elbow against the car door and smirked reminiscently to himself. "It was a dumb project."

"I thought it was fun." Marta offered timidly. She took a second look at her paper creation. It would have looked so much prettier pink... But then again, she doubted that her brother would have been any more impressed with a pink paper snowflake.

She watched the wind whip the snow around Brigitta and Louisa as they ran, chattering and laughing up to the car. They sat beside each other, talking in hushed tones about something. Marta was a little disappointed when they told secrets and didn't share them with her. They usually told her that she was too young to understand what they were talking about.

Outside the foggy window, Marta spotted Friedrich making his way the car. Before he could reach the door, though, a pretty red-haired girl who Marta guessed was one of his classmates tapped his shoulder to get his attention. Friedrich turned to face the girl and they spoke for a few seconds. Then the girl grinned and ran away, giggling.

Friedrich walked stiffly the rest of the way to the car and entered with an utterly faraway look on his face. His cheeks and ears were extraordinarily red. They were almost the same shade as the hair of the girl he had just been talking to.

"Who was that?" Kurt asked with a wide smile that made his cheeks even more plump.

"Nobody." Friedrich muttered defensively as he pressed his face against the window.

Brigitta and Louisa giggled knowingly. Liesl sighed tiredly from the front seat - that was a subtle hint for them to be quiet.

They drove for a while in silence until Brigitta noticed Marta playing with her paper snowflake.

"That's a pretty snowflake, you made, Marta!" Brigitta said from behind her book titled _The Mayan Ruins of Mexico_. On its cover was the picture of a sunset behind a pyramid with hundreds of tiny steps up the front.

"Thank you." Marta responded politely. She still thought it would look prettier if it were pink.

"Stop reading in the car, Brigitta, you'll get sick!" Kurt said bossily as he tried to pull her book out of her grip.

"I will _not_!" She argued as she tugged it back from her brother. "I _always_ read in the car, and I've never once gotten sick."

"Shhh." Liesl hissed at them.

Brigitta turned her nose up at Kurt and practically pressed her entire face between the pages of her book.

Before she had time to even read more than one page, they had arrived back at the house.

Her brothers and sisters rushed out of the car, kicking and shoving to be the first out to touch the snow.

Kurt threw a snowball at Marta's leg when she got out of the car. She didn't care that he had hit her, as long as he didn't try to use her snowflake as a target.

She would play in the snow later. She had something much more important to do.

Marta hastily made her way up the steps and into the warm house. Her face felt like it was burning and freezing at the same time as she bolted up the stairs and into her room. She knelt beside her bed and reached under to feel around for her new box of crayons. She selected her favorite shade of pink and smoothed out her white snowflake on the floor in front of her.

In less than a minute, Marta's snowflake was finally different, special, and unique.

Marta opened her door and peeked out curiously to the sound of shouts and noises in the upstairs hall. Her brothers and sisters were dashing around from door to door, searching for all of their snow gear. Apparently they had decided to go and play in the snow. She would have to brave the chaos if did not want to be left out!

"Those are _my _boots, I remember I bought the red ones!"

"No, they're _mine. _Yours are darker, and these don't even fit your feet!"

"These gloves are too big!"

"I can't find the other pair anywhere!"

"Friedrich, give that back!"

"Hahahaha!"

Mother was soon at the scene of the mess, though, and working the magic that came naturally to her with her children, she successfully straightened out the argument about whose boots were whose, found a perfect fit of gloves for Gretl, uncovered a missing pair of stockings for Liesl, and suggested kindly that Friedrich and Kurt limit their sugar intake at breakfast from now on.

Marta protected herself from the stampede down the stairs by waiting behind. She and Gretl brought up the rear of the madness, contentedly arriving outside six seconds later than the rest.

"I need someone to help me with my snow castle!" Gretl shouted, her scarf practically hindering her ability to speak. Her stubby arms were still so short that the humungous coat she wore had forced her arms in a stiff, outright position so they could only be held at a fair distance from her sides.

"I want to make snow angels!" Marta offered sweetly.

"I'm going to make a snowman of Uncle Max!" Kurt proclaimed.

"I'll help with that!" Friedrich said, already gathering a pile of snow at his feet.

Brigitta took Marta over to find a place near the trees where their snow angels wouldn't be disturbed, and Liesl and Louisa were building shallow walls across from each other that would later aid in a snowball battle.

Within the time frame of twenty minutes or so, Marta and Brigitta had filled the better half of the woods with angel prints, each of whose skirts and wings diminished in width considerably the farther back they went; Kurt and Friedrich were bragging about how close a resemblance their shapely pile of snow shared with Herr Detweiler, and Liesl and Louisa's shallow walls were not so shallow anymore, but impressively steep.

As for Gretl's 'castle', it more resembled a small hut, but she seemed thrilled with it, nonetheless.

Marta made her way over to where the boys were adding the finishing touches to their snowman of Uncle Max. Friedrich had placed a bird's feather on the face for a mustache and Kurt had used one of Father's hats for the head.

She giggled as she imagined what Uncle Max would have said had he been present to see his snowman twin. She guessed he would have liked it.

"What are you rascals up to?" Father's voice came from the terrace. Marta didn't know how he could stand outside without a winter coat on.

"Oh, Father, look!" Kurt called excitedly, "Look! It's Uncle Max!" He and Friedrich shouted over top of each other. Kurt stood beside the life-size snowman and gestured his hands toward it as though presenting a showcase prize.

Father squinted as he moved closer to stare at it over the railing. Expectantly, he found it fairly hilarious, as his gloriously robust laughter was evidence to. Kurt beamed smugly at Father's reaction to his creation.

"Oh, dear. I certainly hope there's not one that resembles _me_ anywhere out here..." Father said in a humorously serious way as he lazily scanned the sides of the yard. Friedrich and Kurt instantly exchanged glances in a way that clearly showed they had the same idea.

Father did not seem to take much notice to this, however. "Not much longer now. I don't want to wait an hour for you all to thaw by the fireplace when you come in!" He ordered before turning to head back inside.

"Aw!" Kurt complained as he stuck out his tongue to catch snowflakes.

Friedrich had already started a new project of making a snow model of his father. Everyone except Friedrich, Kurt, and Marta had gone inside. Marta was very curious to see how the snowman of her father would turn out.

After Mother had called, "Five more minutes, boys!" from her window for the third time, she finally decided to go out and get them herself, only to find both her sons madly packing snow against a form with an angry face and crossed twig arms.

"Ha ha! Look, it's Father!" Kurt announced as he saw his mother watching.

Friedrich mimicked Father's voice almost perfectly as he shook one of the branched arms at Kurt. "Now, now, do shut up, Kurt. You're giving me a headache!"

Mother and Marta laughed loudly at his impersonation. "Really, boys, I mean it this time - you've been out here too long already!" Mother said in a tone that would brook no arguments.

"All right." Friedrich sighed, and Kurt followed with a hung head.

At dinner, Mother was missing. Father explained that she wasn't feeling very well, and she wanted to go to bed early so that she would feel better for the morning.

Marta wasn't upset - usually Mother and Father healed from illness very quickly.

But the next morning, Mother wasn't at breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner again.

Father began to grow more reserved about giving excuses. Marta was a little bit worried.

It was very hard for the children to get ready by themselves in the mornings before school. Father tried to help as best he could, but he just wasn't as fast as Mother was at doing those kinds of things. Marta was late for class for the first time.

She wanted to tell Fraulein Litchfield that her mother had fallen ill and couldn't help her prepare for school in the morning, but she was too shy to say anything. Anyway, Mother would get better soon, wouldn't she? Everything would be back to normal, and she would be able to come to class on time again.

But it looked as though it wasn't going to be a fast recovery as they had hoped.

Every other day, a doctor stayed at their house to talk to Mother and Father about how she could get better. They never told the children much about what was going on, but that only aided in elevating their anxiety.

One evening while everyone else was busy, Marta snuck into Mother's room to visit her by herself.

Opening the door to her parents' room, she felt a cool rush of air envelop her body. She shyly approached the bed where Mother was laying with her eyes closed, clutching her gold and pink pillow with the baby angels on it. Marta could see that she was also wearing a beautiful silver necklace with a shiny, iridescent opal pendant. She found this a little odd, because Mother never wore jewelry while in bed; it was too uncomfortable.

"Mother?" she whispered softly, touching her hand.

Her mother's clear gray eyes opened, and she smiled weakly as she saw Marta. "Oh, I'm glad you came to visit me, Marta. How are you, sweetheart?"

Marta could hardly hear her mother speaking, her voice was so feeble.

"I missed you. When are you going to get better?"

Mother's crystal eyes suddenly appeared very glossy. She did not answer Marta's question. "Marta, be a good girl and go close the window for Mother."

Marta immediately followed her mother's instructions. She padded over to where the wind was whistling through the cracked open window and carefully pulled the glass panes closed. It was snowing so hard outside that she couldn't even see past the balcony.

She shivered and ran back to her mother's side. Mother had opened a hard golden book with a cross on the front. At first, Marta thought it was a Bible, but as she peeked over onto the page her mother was looking at, she saw that there were no words inside, just large pictures of angels.

Mother's slender fingers traced over the outline of one of the angels, making little circles around his halo. Marta quietly lifted herself onto her father's side of the bed and settled down beside Mother's warm body.

"This is the Archangel Gabriel, Marta." She whispered to her daughter, showing her the book. "He was the angel who told Mary that she was going to have the baby Jesus."

Marta remembered learning about the angels at school.

She wondered why Mother had been looking at pictures of angels. "Why are you looking at this book, Mother?"

"I was saying my prayers, darling. Sometimes it's easier to say our prayers while we look at religious pictures."

"Is that why the walls at church are covered with pictures of holy people?" Marta wondered out loud.

"Yes, dear." Mother replied in her hushed voice as she reached up to fondly touch the necklace at her throat, "That is why."

"I like this picture." Marta pointed at the realistic illustration of a female angel hovering behind a young girl.

"Isn't she beautiful? She's called a guardian angel."

"What does that mean?"

"Everyone in the world has their own guardian angel. They watch over us and protect us from harm."

"Do I have a guardian angel?" Marta asked eagerly. She didn't want to be the only person without her very own angel.

"Yes, darling. Everyone has one. All of your brothers and sisters, and me… and even Father." She twisted her wedding ring around her finger and exhaled shakily.

Marta wasn't sure that adults like Mother or Father needed an angel to follow them around and protect them - especially not Father. He was already so brave.

But it was a nice idea.

"Can we ever see the angels?" Marta whispered hopefully.

"No, I'm afraid not. But you must believe in your angel, Marta, or else she will go away."

Marta didn't want her angel to abandon her. She tried her very hardest to believe, glancing a little self-consciously around the room, wondering where her guardian angel could be. It was sort of hard to imagine that someone was there when you couldn't see them with your eyes.

"If you are ever feeling frightened or uncertain, you can always talk to your guardian angel and ask them for help and guidance." Mother said softly as she closed the book. "I have been talking to my guardian angel very often lately..."

"Are you afraid that you might not get better?" Marta asked worriedly, making her voice even quieter. Maybe Mother wanted to keep it a secret.

Again, her question went unanswered. Mother placed the golden book into Marta's little hands. "I want you to keep this book, Marta. So that you will always remember your... your guardian angel."

Marta squeezed the book very tightly. She felt special because Mother had given her such a lovely gift. She was going to keep it under her pillow while she slept at night.

She was about to ask Mother if she wanted to play a game to make her feel better, but Mother spoke again before she could say anything, "Marta, can you please find Father and tell him to come to our room?"

Marta felt slightly frightened again - it looked a little bit like Mother wanted to cry. Marta's heart empathized with her mother's distress - she knew how awful it felt to be sick and not even be able to get out of bed. Mother had been in bed for almost a week, now. Surely she was crying because of that.

"Okay." Marta whispered after giving her mother a light, but loving embrace. She could feel Mother's heart beating against her cheek. So slow, so very slow...

She clutched her new book with both hands as she rushed into the hall to find Father.

She didn't even have to look for him. He was standing at the very end of the hall, staring out the window. She tugged on his jacket, careful to keep her voice quiet so that she wouldn't startle him, "Father, Mother needs you."

But he still looked startled as he turned around to look down at her. His eyes looked bright blue in the hazy white light of the window.

He didn't even respond her her before he hurried towards the bedroom door, and rushed inside, leaving Marta behind.

Marta walked slowly up to the door and pressed her ear to the cool, polished wood. Only silence met her ear.

She felt her eyes prickle with tears. Maybe now was a good time to talk to her guardian angel.

She sulked back to her room and sat on the end of her bed, staring in her mirror. She imagined herself in the place of the little girl from the picture in the book, and her guardian angel was hovering just behind her.

Her guardian angel was probably very pretty. She had soft, golden curls and rosy cheeks like the angels in the book. Only instead of wearing a white robe like all of the other angels, Marta imagined that her angel wore a long, flowing pink robe. Instead of white wings, hers were a pale, delicate pink.

Marta's guardian angel was not like other angels - she was different, special, and unique.

Suddenly she remembered her snowflake. Picking it up, she turned it over in her hand, admiring her coloring job. It was too special to just hang on her wall. She wanted to put it somewhere where it would be seen, where it would be appreciated, where it would cheer someone up.

Mother seemed like she needed cheering up. Marta decided that because Mother had given her a gift, she would bring her mother a gift.

That night, she snuck out of her room and gingerly slipped through the door of her parents' room. Father was not in the bed - only Mother was. But she was fast asleep.

Marta tip-toed over to the bed and carefully placed her snowflake on the pillow beside her mother where she would be sure to find it in the morning. Marta was just sure that she would see it and feel all better.

She dreamt that Mother was well again and they were playing in the snow together. From the sky fell beautiful, sparkling pink snowflakes. And the snow wasn't even cold.

But when she woke up, she was very cold. And the snow that laced her window was white, not pink. But it was still possible that Mother was feeling better this morning...

It was still dark in her room because it was so early. She sat up in bed to rub her eyes when the shadowy figure of her father came into her room. "Marta, Gretl..." He called them softly, "I know it's very early, but you have to wake up now."

"Why?" Marta whispered with a yawn.

Father walked over to Gretl's bed and gently shook her. "You and your sister are going to spend a few days at Aunt Monica and Uncle Albrecht's house." His voice sounded very tired, as though he had been up late the night before.

Gretl moaned as he lifted her out of her bed. "Why do we have to leave the house?" Marta asked curiously.

"Because your aunt and uncle have missed you both, and they want to see you."

"But I have school today!" Marta countered dubiously. It only made sense if Gretl was going, since she didn't have school. But for Marta to just leave early in the morning, before the sun had even risen, to visit her aunt and uncle for no reason... it just didn't add up.

Father answered her calmly as he carried her sister to the door, "Don't worry, we'll call the school and tell them that you can't come today."

Marta was very confused. She didn't like it when people didn't tell her the full story. And she could tell that Father wasn't telling her everything.

Nevertheless, she didn't ignore him when he told her to pack her suitcase with enough clothes to last a few days.

She made sure to put three outfits inside, including her school uniform, just in case. She added her toothbrush, her favorite doll, and her angel book, too.

As she walked through the hall past her parents' room, she could see that the lights were all on and several strangers were talking inside by the bed. Father quickly shut the door when he saw her looking inside and guided her and Gretl down the stairs towards the front door.

Father picked up Gretl and held Marta's gloved hand as they made their way through the snow to the running car. Marta sort of wished she could play in the snow - it had gotten so deep overnight that it completely covered her ankles!

"I'm cold!" Gretl complained. She sounded like she was going to cry.

"Shh. You'll be warm in the car." Father paused by the open car door, holding Gretl tightly and kissing her before he placed her inside. "I will see you both when you come back. You'll be fine - Aunt Monica and Uncle Albrecht are going to take good care of you."

Marta felt a little like crying herself all of a sudden. Father made it sound like they were going to be gone for a very long time...but he had only said a few days!

She could barely feel her father's arms through her thick, heavy coat as he pulled her into his embrace. He kissed her cheek and held her against his face for a few moments. "I love you both." He whispered. "So does Mother..." He added as he pulled away. His eyes were very glassy when he looked down at her.

"Get inside the car, Marta." He told her, straightening himself up. He didn't look so sad anymore. Maybe her eyes had been playing tricks on her.

Marta crawled inside after her sister, and Father shut the door. She looked back and watched her beautiful, snow-dusted house grow smaller as the car left their driveway, and soon it was out of sight.

Gretl and Marta remained nestled close to each other on the same side of the car, even though they had the whole back seat to themselves for once. But Marta secretly wished that it had been more crowded, even if it meant her brothers and sisters were kicking and complaining. She was so cold...

The ride to her aunt and uncle's house was a blur - she could barely keep her eyes open, she was still so sleepy. She hoped they wouldn't have to be gone for very long. She wanted to be home when Mother finally got well again.

Aunt Monica and Uncle Albrecht seemed very happy to see Marta and Gretl, just as Father had said they would. Maybe they really had missed them…but why not the rest of the family, too?

Aunt Monica hugged Marta much tighter than Uncle Albrecht did, even though a man was usually stronger than a woman. Her aunt liked to hug very much - and it didn't matter who she was hugging. She simply liked to show affection toward everyone.

Seeing her aunt and uncle made her feel a little better for a while, and she rather enjoyed the mild excitement that accompanied her missing school for no reason. At least no reason she was aware of...

Gretl seemed to be enjoying herself, too. Apparently her little sister had forgotten how reluctant she had been to leave home in the morning.

Aunt Monica had even brought down the candy jar for them, which she hardly ever did - especially when Kurt and Friedrich were around. They had come very close to breaking it once. Not to mention Kurt had even threatened to eat every piece of candy inside on his own.

The antique blue crystal bowl glittered tauntingly on the high fireplace mantel in the parlor. No one could reach it alone - even Aunt Monica had to bring her footstool over to stand on when she wanted to bring it down.

It had a heavy crystal lid that made a loud, beautiful clinking sound when you closed it or opened it. Inside were hundreds of different candies: toffee cubes and chocolate mints and butterscotch rounds and fruit drops. There was no way to describe how appealing they looked assorted into a rainbow of colors inside that glorious crystal bowl.

Normally, the children would have had to do something impressive or be on their very best behavior for Aunt Monica to even consider bringing them the candy jar - but today she readily reached for it the moment the two girls entered the room.

All suspicions aside, Marta was instantly delighted by her simplified access to the treasure trove of sweets. It was especially nice to have the jar practically all to herself, without her brothers trying to grab all of the biggest pieces, or Louisa trying to snatch all of her favorites.

Marta smiled furtively as she reached into the large bowl and found a raspberry sweet. They were her favorite because they came in the loveliest pink wrapper with a tiny picture of a raspberry printed on it. They were rarely in the bowl, and even when they were, one of her older sisters would usually find them before she did.

She unwrapped the candy carefully so as not to tear its wrapper. She planned on saving it so that she would always have the pretty wrapper if she wanted to look at it later. She popped the candy in her mouth and rolled it around her tongue, feeling it melt all too quickly until it was nothing but a sugary aftertaste.

Like all good things, they stayed only for a while until they suddenly disappeared. But it had been worth it. After all, she could still hold that divine taste in her mouth for a few more hours.

Marta glanced from the corner of her eye to watch Gretl wipe her fingers along the folds of her skirt, still sticky with the remains of a marzipan peach. Sometimes Gretl treated her clothing as though it was a giant napkin. She was probably due for her bath, anyway. Marta decided she should tell Aunt Monica.

"Oh, dear. She certainly is as sticky as a bonbon, isn't she?" Her aunt heaved as she lifted the rotund child from the floor. "Come on then, Marta, you can help me give your sister her bath."

Gretl splashed around in the tub, giggling as Marta decorated her hair with handfuls of bubbles. "She looks like she has ice cream on her head, doesn't she?" Marta asked for Aunt Monica's opinion, low enough so that her sister couldn't hear.

Her aunt laughed robustly and nodded in agreement. When Aunt Monica laughed, her eyes got so squinty that you could hardly tell what color they were. When she finally relaxed, you could see that they were still a glimmering shamrock green. Her eyes were always watery when she finished laughing very hard. Marta thought that her laughing made her eyes even more beautiful.

Gretl just kept right on giggling innocently as she refilled an empty shampoo bottle with soapy water and poured it over her head.

"Whenever I take my baths, I like to pretend that I'm a mermaid." Marta confessed as her hands skidded gracefully across the bubbly surface of the water.

"Can I be a mermaid?" Gretl asked pleadingly, a cluster of bubbles on her chin.

Marta laughed as she wiped the bubbles off of her sister's face. "Yes, but mermaids don't have bubble beards!"

Gretl made a sour face at her, but quickly adopted her new role as a mermaid, pretending to swim in the unrealistically shallow water.

"Aunt Monica, do you believe in mermaids?" Marta asked curiously.

"Well, I don't know, dear." She gave her a confused smile, "I've never seen one in person before. Have you?"

"No, but I've never been to the sea." She shrugged. "Father said he once saw a real mermaid back when he was on his ship."

"Did he now?" Aunt Monica's thin eyebrows arched in surprise.

"Uh-huh. He said she had long black hair and a shiny green fin." Marta stated dreamily. Gretl seemed to show a mild interest in their conversation now.

"Your father has surprisingly never told me of this enchanted encounter. I shall have to ask him about it sometime."

Marta smiled and continued importantly, "Did you know that Father was a Captain on a submarine?"

Aunt Monica looked as though she might do her squinty-eyed laugh again. "Yes indeed, darling. I certainly did know that."

"Did you also know that he fell in love with Mother before he even became a Captain?"

Aunt Monica's happy emerald eyes grew dim. "Oh, yes... I did know that as well, dear."

Marta cocked her head in slight puzzlement. It was almost as if her aunt thought this to be a sad piece of information.

"Did you know that Mother said she first started loving Father when -"

"My, my, you are quite the chatterbox this evening, Marta!" Aunt Monica interrupted with what sounded like a forced laugh. "Just hand me that towel over there, and we'll let little Gretl come out of her bath, now."

Marta sighed and pulled the fluffy towel out from behind her. She wondered vaguely why her aunt seemed so upset with the subject of her parents.

Marta and Gretl always slept in the guest bedroom with the sunny yellow walls and the bed with the turtledoves stitched into the quilts. On the wall across from the bed was a painting of Noah and the arc. Whenever Marta had trouble getting to sleep at night in that room, she would try to count all the pairs of animals going into the arc. She never did get to count them all before falling asleep, and to this day she still had no idea how many there were.

Marta rushed into the bedroom after brushing her teeth to see that Gretl was already sound asleep on one side of their bed.

She knelt by her suitcase and uncovered her favorite doll from under her clothes. Her blond curls were all tangled and frizzy from being stuffed inside a suitcase all day. Marta climbed into bed with her doll and tiredly brushed through her hair until it assumed its normal state.

"There." She whispered in satisfaction as she set her doll's head on the pretty pillow with the turtledove stitching. She tucked the covers around them both and lowered her head to rest right next to her doll's dress.

The doll smelled strongly of peppermints and Mother's perfume. Marta hugged herself under the quilts. She was feeling slightly homesick at the thought of Mother. She remembered faintly how her mother used to return at night from parties or a play, and she would sit on the edge of Marta's bed and tell her all about it, no matter how late it was.

There was a certain restaurant that she and Father visited a few times a month, and whenever she returned from that restaurant, she would bring home colorful dinner mints and share them with Marta. They came in pastel pink, blue, green, and orange. Marta was convinced that the pink ones tasted the best, even though Mother had told her many times how they were all the same flavor, just colored differently.

Marta hoped that when Mother was well again, she would take her along to that restaurant one night.

Marta turned around in the bed as her aunt entered the room and handed her a green and gold Rosary necklace. "Now, Marta, darling, I want you to take these Rosary beads and pray very hard for your mother tonight."

Marta was slightly taken aback by her aunt's quiet instructions. "Pray for her...?" She was very concerned now. Usually people only prayed for others when they were about to die. Surely her mother was not going to die - she had spoken to her just yesterday and she had looked fine, aside from being a bit drowsy.

"Yes, dear. You are familiar with how to pray the Rosary, aren't you?" She didn't even wait for Marta to answer before sitting next to her on the bed and demonstrating too quickly for her to follow, "You see, you simply pray the 'Hail Mary' once for each of the ten green beads until you reach a gold bead, and then you recite the -"

Marta's soft little yawn broke her speech for a moment. Aunt Monica looked as if she planned to continue talking, but she suddenly fell silent, just staring at the jeweled crucifix in her hands.

Noticing the distant look on her aunt's face, Marta held out her hand for the beads, "I'll try to pray the Rosary tonight, Aunt Monica." She promised politely.

Her aunt gazed down at her with a sad smile, her lovely green eyes shamelessly welling with tears. "Good girl..." She extracted a string of pearly white beads from her own pocket. "I'll pray the first line with you."

And that was the last thing she remembered from that night. Her aunt's hushed voice reciting the Rosary in the dim room as she slowly nodded off to sleep.

It must have been a very deep sleep, for she was not quite sure just when she had woken up from it.

She was distraught when she had finally learned the truth for why she had been sent away that fateful morning, but she was still utterly unable to believe that what had happened was not just a cruel illusion.

Yet she saw the body, saw her lying in the casket, her beautiful face framed behind a barricade of carnations and lilies, pale as the snow that fell from the gray winter sky. She regarded everyone with the same stoic profile, as though carved from cold marble, as they came to say their last goodbyes.

She was an angel now, the priest had said. _"Your mother is an angel in heaven. Even though you cannot see her, she will be with you always, watching you and guiding you whenever you need her." _

It sounded an awful lot like her mother was a guardian angel herself, now.

But it was so much harder to talk to Mother when she was invisible.

It was so fantastically strange how quickly the presence of her mother faded from her thoughts and memories. It was as if she had never really existed - like she was just part of a wonderful dream. A dream that had lasted too long, and ended too quickly. A dream whose bittersweet aftertaste that did not linger as long as she would have preferred.

Now, everyone is always sad and silent. An almost-five-year-old gets less attention every day, but she doesn't really mind. Quiet moments and fleeting memories are the things her young life is comprised of. There are no more pink snowflakes.

She hardly knows her father. He is just a man who sometimes speaks to her, but uses words that she hardly understands. A man who sometimes holds her, but whose arms never hold as tightly as she wishes they would.

But she is fairly certain he is still living. He is not a part of that dream that ended so abruptly. He is still here with her - with all of them.

And as she runs into his weak embrace, she never fails to feel his heart beating against her cheek. So fast, so very fast...


	7. Cocoon

**Chapter 7: Cocoon **

**An Excerpt from Gretl's childhood**

_So here is little Gretl's story, which takes place during the movie. It's short and sweet, much like Gretl herself. :) _

* * *

"_Have at thee_!" Kurt took one proud step forward and stabbed at his older brother with the end of a pointed branch. Friedrich tumbled across the grass, feigning extraordinary pain.

Gretl leaned back against a tree and yawned. Her brothers' fake sword fights were rather boring - and they always ended the same way. One of them would roll through the grass and come to a halt at the foot of the victor, making a dramatic scene of their 'death.'

Then they started all over again, no matter how out of breath they were.

Gretl turned her head around at the sweet, lilting sound of Fraulein Maria singing. Her sister Marta was singing with her. Not wanting to be left out of something, Gretl quickly got to her feet and brushed her stubby legs off, running in the direction of her governess.

"Oh, look, here comes Gretl!" Marta pointed to her from the cluster of trees on the other side of the yard.

Fraulein Maria's smile was the most glorious image one could ask for in a greeting. "Gretl! How nice of you to join us!" She exclaimed cheerfully, her friendly eyes the color of robin's eggs under the sunlight.

"What are you doing?" Gretl questioned them.

"We're looking at cocoons." Marta answered importantly. She seemed to be engrossed with studying the trunks of the trees.

Fraulein Maria stood off to the side, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked over to where the boys were still engaged in one of their 'fights.'

Gretl tugged on the hem of the woman's skirt, a most reliable gesture for earning her attention.

"Yes, Gretl?"

"What's a cocoon?" She asked quietly, not wanting Marta to hear that she didn't know what the word meant.

"Come with me and I'll show you." Something about Fraulein Maria's voice held a signature tone that meant she was about to take action.

Gretl followed her to a tall old tree with reddish bark. It was much cooler under the shade of the trees.

Fraulein Maria pointed to a white speck that appeared to be lodged within the ridges of the bark.

"This," she said plainly, "is a cocoon."

The closer Gretl got to the speck, the more it resembled a small piece of pinkish cotton stuck to the tree. "What's so special about it?" She asked, staring at the foreign capsule with discreet interest.

"There's a caterpillar inside it."

"There is?"

"Mm hm."

"Why don't we help it to get out?"

"No, no," Fraulein Maria said, laughing comfortingly. "It wrapped itself inside on purpose."

Gretl looked up at her governess doubtfully. She wondered why on earth a little caterpillar would want to be trapped in that sticky, cottony substance.

Fraulein Maria smiled and crouched down beside her in the grass. "When a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, it just falls asleep for a very long time. Sort of like hibernation. Then when it comes out, it turns into a lovely butterfly."

Gretl's gaze returned to the cocoon, now deciding it deserved to be looked upon with mild reverence.

_It turned into a butterfly? How magical was that!_

Fraulein Maria's lofty blue eyes were distant as though she were daydreaming. She continued, "Sometimes_ people_ create a cocoon for themselves, too. They may hide away in their cocoon from the rest of the world until one day, when they're ready, they'll be revealed as an entirely different person."

Gretl was slightly confused. Did that mean she could make a cocoon for herself if she wanted? She could be a new person when she unwrapped herself... What would she be like?

Surely she would be taller. And older. And prettier. And smarter.

She smiled.

"Have you ever seen a butterfly come out of the cocoon, Fraulein Maria?" Gretl inquired.

Fraulein Maria's eyes glowed back to life and she grinned. "Yes." She nodded, "It's a very exciting thing, but it's very rare. Not very likely that we will see this one open. We'd be very lucky if we did."

Gretl sighed softly. She had hoped she would have the chance to see this butterfly hatch.

Just then, Marta came running up to them, panting slightly. "Friedrich wants to know if we can ride in the rowboat."

Fraulein Maria gave a smile of approval, then looked down at Gretl. "Are you in the mood for a boat ride, Gretl?"

Friedrich and Kurt thought it was funny to rock the boat every once in a while, which Gretl and Marta didn't like very much. They would cling to each other and shriek when they did it, until Fraulein Maria settled everyone down. Gretl was a little afraid of the water since she couldn't swim very well. She was all right in shallow water, but in the middle of the lake it was very deep. Not to mention, her brothers once said they had seen a sea serpent in the water. Drowning would have been bad enough, but to be swallowed alive by a serpent - that would be even worse.

They practiced singing for a while - seriously at first, then it soon turned to the usual fooling around. Fraulein Maria would wave her hands and pretend like she was conducting a prestigious symphony. Her antics always made Gretl laugh.

_"That will bring us back to Do - oh- oh -oh!"_

Liesl had been the first to spot Father, standing at the gate, staring out at their display with a stern but seemingly disinterested look about him. Or maybe it was Brigitta who first became aware of his presence. It had happened so fast.

"Look, it's your father!" Fraulein Maria told Gretl excitedly. She wondered for a moment why Fraulein Maria would be so enthusiastic about their father's return. After all, he would not approve of their going out every day to play and sing.

In a moment, they were all standing and waving to their father...and the beautiful blonde woman behind him. Gretl guessed she was the Baroness.

Among the incomprehensible cries of the children, Fraulein Maria clasped her hands together in a dramatic expression of what seemed to be ironic relief and exclaimed, "Oh, Captain! You're home!"

That was when it happened. The boat tipped with the erratic shifting of their combined weights and suddenly gave way. Gretl was tossed forward off the boat and into the murky water with the rest of her shouting siblings.

She felt the cold water force her clothes to stick to her body in a most unpleasant way. Under the water, she heard nothing but the muffled noises of her sisters laughing and her father yelling. In a fleeting moment of desperation she reached out on all sides, frantically searching for someone to hold onto. Then a pair of hands grabbed surely onto arms and Louisa lifted her above the surface of the water.

Gretl took one gasp of air and wiped her eyes with relief. She was okay. She had survived a fall into the water.

She put a smile on her face as though nothing had went wrong and clumsily followed the rest of her brothers and sisters out of the lake. She pranced past her father, listening to the squishing sounds of her water-logged shoes on the stone. For a few seconds she forgot about how much she disliked being cold and wet.

Then the sudden, shrill sound of her father's boatswain whistle made her ears ring. Her ingrained response took over, as did in the rest of her siblings, and they sloshed rather rustily back to their ordered positions in line. It had been a while since Father had made them line up like that.

He paced past them, performing his usual inspection. As he passed Louisa, he yanked the cloth bandana from her hair with an unforgiving snap. Gretl wondered if Father recognized that their clothing was made from Fraulein Maria's drapes.

Gretl glanced discreetly at her governess as she stood, dripping wet like the rest of them at the side of the gate. She looked a bit worried, but maybe even a little angry.

Gretl pouted to herself as she realized that their fun would probably be put to an end now that her father had returned. They would have to be on their best behavior - no fooling around or singing or running in the house, especially with the Baroness visiting. Gretl tried to smile at her father as he looked dismissively at her, but all she could do was wince weakly. She felt cold all over. That was just the way Father made her feel sometimes.

All was silent except for the birds singing for a brief pause as Father returned to the woman on his left. "This is Baroness Schraeder..." He began in a mildly warning tone. "And _these_ -" His eyes fell lazily on their imperfect line and he finished unceremoniously, "- are my children."

The woman bit her lip as though she were trying to refrain from laughing at the scene. She composed herself quickly with a look that lingered briefly on Father and shifted back to the children. "How do you do?" Was her sophisticated greeting. Her voice was airy and elegant.

Not one of the children dared to utter a response.

It would not have been possible in any case, for Father's strict orders to run inside and dry off had prohibited them from furthering their acquaintance.

No one moved.

"_Immediately_!" Her father's voice was so forceful, Gretl could feel it echo inside of her chest.

And they rushed for the door.

"Fraulein, you will stay here, please -" Gretl caught her father's distant request and turned curiously back in the threshold to watch Fraulein Maria obediently turn to face him.

The Baroness murmured an excuse and began walking towards the door.

Suddenly intimidated by the nearing presence of their strange guest, Gretl hurried back inside before she could be seen. She climbed the stairs after the rest of her siblings, peeking over the edge of the railing to watch the Baroness disappear into the parlor.

"Where is Fraulein Maria's guitar?" Liesl asked the group in a hushed voice.

"I think she left it downstairs." Friedrich answered.

"Do we really _have _to sing for that woman?" Louisa complained with a look of furrowed distress.

"Yes. Fraulein Maria wants us to." Kurt nobly stated.

Louisa sighed heavily and slammed the door to her and Brigitta's room. Marta tugged Gretl's arm into their own room to change as quickly as they could into their dry uniforms.

It had seemed like such a long time since Gretl had to wear that uniform. She hated having to wear knee socks in the summer. Marta didn't seem to be complaining, however, and that was enough to make Gretl comply.

"Don't forget your flowers." Marta reminded her as she handed her the modest bouquet of edelweiss Fraulein Maria had suggested as a gift for the Baroness. It was quite an odd thing that even Fraulein Maria seemed to be very willing that they should impress the Baroness. Father's intensity on the matter was one thing, but Gretl was confused as to why this woman's visit was such an ordeal.

She clutched the tiny white blossoms in her hand and inhaled their summery fragrance. The scent reminded her distinctly of her governess. She hoped Fraulein Maria was not in trouble with Father...

Brigitta poked her head into their room. "Are you ready?"

The girls nodded and filed out their door. Gretl tried her best to ignore how uncomfortable it was having soaking wet socks and water still dripping from her hair. She would have to 'put on a good face' for Baroness Schraeder as Fraulein Maria liked to say.

"Do you think you will forget the words?" Marta asked Gretl softly as they made their way down the stairs.

"Hmmm...No." Gretl whispered honestly. "Fraulein Maria practiced it with us so many times. I don't think I'll ever forget the words to her song."

Marta looked slightly relieved. "Me neither."

They smiled at each other.

Liesl entered the parlor first, hesitantly picking up the guitar from the corner of the room before she approached Uncle Max. The Baroness, who looked as though she had been about to light a cigarette, turned to regard the Captain's eldest daughter with polite interest.

"Why, Liesl, I didn't know you could play the guitar!" Uncle Max remarked, noticing the instrument in her hands, "Have you been taking lessons?"

"Sort of..." Liesl replied shyly, looking back at her brothers and sisters as they casually arranged themselves in an isolated cluster on the opposite side of the room. Gretl clasped the edelweiss within her trembling hands behind her back. The ticking of the clock on the other end of the room seemed strongly magnified to her suddenly sensitive ears.

"Won't you play something for us?" Uncle Max requested, gesturing toward the Baroness.

"Actually," Liesl spoke in a timid voice, "Our governess has taught us all a song. We're supposed to perform it -" She faced the Baroness pointedly, "for _you_, Baroness Schraeder."

The woman's thin eyebrows raised slightly as she looked between Liesl and Max, and she gave a pristine smile. "My, my. How charming." Her voice was drawling and delicate, "I would very much love to hear it. Your father never mentioned that his children were... _musically _inclined." She assumed a ladylike position on the chaise. "But you will have to forgive me, I'm not quite familiar with many of your names."

Uncle Max quickly took the liberty of introducing them each by name. It was as if he knew how awkward they were all feeling. Uncle Max was always helpful in awkward situations - at least in Gretl's opinion.

"I am very anxious to hear you children sing, myself." Uncle Max confessed cheerfully as he leaned against the clock across the room. "What is the name of the song?"

Liesl replied as she moved to stand behind Gretl. "...The Sound of Music."

"Promising title." Max remarked with a chuckle. "Whenever you're ready, then."

Gretl turned her eyes down to stare at her feet. Her wet, soggy socks were drooping about her ankles in a depressing way. She swallowed, suddenly nervous. She had never sung before for any adults other than Fraulein Maria. It was a little scary to have to sing in front of this strange woman and even for Uncle Max. But Liesl did not look that nervous as she expertly strummed their starting chord, and Gretl's trained ears retrieved the note she was meant to sing.

The song flowed easily and freely; she did not even have to think to remember the lyrics, or the notes. Fraulein Maria had been right - it _was _fun to perform. The nerves seemed to just melt away once her voice was raised in harmony with those of her brothers and sisters.

Friedrich and Kurt were actually quite good at their parts when they were not joking around. And Liesl was brilliant on the guitar - Fraulein Maria had taught her well... had taught them _all_ well.

When they had first started the song, it had been difficult to force a smile. Now Gretl found it almost impossible to suppress a smile. She loved singing.

She loved singing alone.

She loved singing with Fraulein Maria.

She loved singing with her brothers and sisters.

She loved singing with...

Father.

It was something out of a dream. A cruel, deceptive, but beautiful dream. Her father was singing.

He was singing the same lyrics, and the same melody that they had been taught by Fraulein Maria. Gretl briefly entertained the ridiculous notion that her governess had taught Father to sing as well.

Liesl slowly lowered the guitar as they all exchanged incredulous glances of amazed shock.

Their voices harmonized naturally with the intrusion of the tentative, but passionate male tenor - it was as if it had been made to be that way. He was singing _with_ them.

"_My heart will be blessed with the sound of music,_

_And I'll sing once more..."_

The silence that followed was sacred. A thousand words were spoken with only the eyes... and perhaps the hearts.

That discreet, abrupt motion of her father's arm may as well have been God's welcoming arm to heaven.

And he was her father once more.

He held them as if he was not afraid to hold them. He looked into their eyes without that cloudy haze of distance.

He smiled at them. Not in any manner that was sarcastic or ironic, and not out of strict amusement. He was genuinely _happy _that they were his children.

Perhaps he_ had_ loved them all along.

The past did not matter, now. All was forgiven.

Gretl was eternally grateful for her father's inviting embrace. It was as if she finally knew what being a daughter meant. She knew what it was like to have a _real _father. Now all she needed was a real _mother. _

Over Father's sleeve, Gretl caught sight of a still soaking Fraulein Maria in the hallway. She smiled broadly at her governess, expecting her to share the joy of what their song had brought.

But Fraulein Maria still appeared distant and slightly sad. She gave a weak smile and motioned toward the Baroness with a nod.

Gretl quickly remembered her flowers. Reluctantly leaving her father's arms, she shyly made her way over to the Baroness and presented the edelweiss as she had practiced.

"Edelweiss." The Baroness professed in her low, breathy voice. Gretl carefully lowered herself in a silent curtsy and submitted herself to the Baroness's limp embrace, inhaling the foreign fragrance of the woman's rich perfume. "You never told me how enchanting your children are."

Father turned to gaze idly at her from where he stood, still surrounded by his children's attentive stares.

Gretl looked back at Fraulein Maria, who appeared suddenly rather flustered and swiftly walked away from the doorway as though she had no care for what was going on inside the room. Gretl pouted. Why didn't Fraulein Maria come inside? She hadn't even had the chance to see them singing her song. Maybe they should sing it again for her...

"Don't go away." Father suddenly whispered as he pried himself from Brigitta's grip on his waist and hurried out into the hall.

Gretl assumed he was going to invite Fraulein Maria inside. But when he returned not a minute later, he was alone.

She hoped Fraulein Maria was all right.

Gretl knocked softly on the governess's bedroom door later that evening.

"Come in." Fraulein Maria's muffled voice welcomed her inside.

She was sitting on her bed, with the Bible in her lap. She closed the thick book as she saw Gretl in the threshold.

"Oh, Gretl, darling. I - I wasn't expecting you." She said tiredly, but patted the space on the mattress beside her, and Gretl instantly filled it. "Is everything all right?"

Gretl didn't know how to answer that question. On one hand, she was relieved and happy that her father loved her again - but on the other, she was concerned for her governess and puzzled by her mysterious behavior.

"Yes...but..." She fiddled with her fingers, "I just wanted to be sure that you're still staying with us... You aren't going back to the abbey yet, are you?"

Fraulein Maria didn't answer right away, but when she did, it was in a sure and confident voice. "No, of course not. I'm staying here for now." She smiled down at her, but a part of her still looked tired.

"Fraulein Maria?"

"Yes?"

"I think we changed Father's mind about singing." Gretl remarked innocently.

Fraulein Maria laughed in a rather relieved way. "Yes, I think you did a very good job of that."

Gretl pondered her father's strange change of character for a minute. "Do you think Father was stuck inside of a cocoon?"

Fraulein Maria's eyes got wide for a second, then a slight smile came to her lips. "If he was, he has broken his way out of it now, hasn't he?"

Gretl grinned. So human cocoons _were _real! If Father could change himself through a cocoon, then maybe she could try it herself.

Early the next morning, Gretl gathered up all of the sheets from her bed and laid them flat on the carpet of her room. It was a surprisingly difficult task to perform all on her own, but Marta was still asleep, and Gretl wanted to surprise her sister when she woke up.

Gretl neatly folded the corners of the blanket and layered each of her sheets one at a time on top of the blanket. She looked up at the sound of Marta stirring slightly in her bed and noticed that she was being watched by two dark, bleary eyes. So much for the surprise.

Marta yawned and sat up straight in her bed. "Why are all of your blankets down there?"

"Because I put them there." Gretl responded cryptically. It was something one of her older sisters would say, and she liked the way she sounded saying it. It made her seem grown up.

"Are you going to sleep on the floor?" Marta guessed with a giggle.

"No," Gretl sighed as she laid herself in the middle of the sheets. "I'm going to make a cocoon."

"A cocoon?" Marta repeated confusedly. "You mean like a butterfly cocoon?"

"Sort of. Only mine is a human cocoon."

"That's so silly, Gretl. Humans don't make cocoons."

"Fraulein Maria said they could."

"...Really?"

"Yes. And even Father made one."

"When did he ever do that?"

"Just yesterday, probably. That's why he changed so much."

Marta stared down at her doubtfully.

Gretl grabbed the corner of the blanket and pulled it toward her chest. "Help me wrap myself up in these sheets and I'll show you how it works."

Marta giggled as she rolled her little sister into the sheets. "Is it comfortable in there?" She asked.

Gretl's response was significantly muffled. "Not really."

It was stuffy and hard to breathe inside her cocoon. She was getting a little too warm, but she didn't want to start complaining now. Hatching from a cocoon took time, but it would be worth it when she was done.

"How long are you going to lay there, Gretl?"

"I don't really know. I guess I will just have to wait until I feel myself changing."

"That will take forever!" Marta declared in exasperation. Gretl heard the springs of her mattress squeak as her sister tossed herself onto the bed.

"You don't have to wait for me."

"That's true. I'm hungry, anyway." Marta said. Her footsteps pranced to the door. "I'm going to eat breakfast."

Gretl had forgotten about breakfast. Her stomache rumbled slightly at the thought of food. She probably should have eaten before she went into her cocoon. She _was _pretty hungry, herself.

She opened her mouth to ask Marta to bring something up for her, but her sister had already left.

It was so lonely inside a cocoon. Gretl wondered how the butterflies did it.

She waited patiently for something to happen, but she just seemed to be getting warmer and warmer, and she had to breathe through a tiny hole above her head.

It was awfully quiet without anyone to keep her company.

The sound of quick steps outside her door penetrated the silence and the door swung open. "Gretl, where are you?" Brigitta's voice asked.

"I'm in here!" Gretl shouted from inside her cocoon.

"Fraulein Maria! I found her!" Brigitta knelt down beside Gretl's buried body and began to tug at the covers.

"No, don't!" Gretl chirped. "You'll ruin my cocoon!"

More footsteps echoed from the hall and Fraulein Maria entered the bedroom. "Oh, dear! Why are you all tied up in your sheets, Gretl?"

Gretl was slightly upset that her governess hadn't guessed what she was doing. "It's my cocoon!"

Brigitta laughed.

Fraulein Maria's soft voice was closer to her when she spoke again. "Your cocoon? Oh, how silly. What would a sweet little girl like you need a cocoon for?"

Gretl almost protested when Fraulein Maria pulled the covers apart to reveal her face, but seeing her smile made her regret that she had made a cocoon in the first place.

"I just wanted to see how it would change me."

Fraulein Maria sighed. "Gretl, when I said people could make cocoons, that was just a metaphor. They aren't really trapping themselves into cocoons. Besides, it's the heart that changes, not the appearance."

Brigitta smiled in understanding. "Oh, I see... a metaphorical cocoon... that's brilliant!"

Gretl gave a reluctant smile as well. It was amazing how Fraulein Maria could explain anything to her and it seemed to make perfect sense - even if the vocabulary was sometimes confusing. "What is a _metaphor_?"

Brigitta opened her mouth to answer, but Fraulein Maria replied before she could say anything. "Never mind that." She laughed gently, "Don't ever try to change yourself, Gretl. We love you just the way you are. And your father does, too."

Gretl wondered why Fraulein Maria kept mentioning Father. She grinned at her governess and let Brigitta unravel the blankets from around her.

"Let's go down to breakfast, now." Brigitta suggested, taking Gretl's hand.

"Where are Uncle Max and Baroness Schraeder?" Louisa asked her father at breakfast.

"Probably so appalled at the noise you children are making that they're terrified to come downstairs." Father answered seriously.

Louisa pursed her lips and the rest of her siblings quieted slightly at the implication - but it didn't last for long.

Frau Schmidt placed a lovely white and orange cake in the center of the table.

"What sort of cake is that, Frau Schmidt?" Gretl asked curiously, lifting her bottom off of her seat to get a better look.

"Cook says it's a new recipe - carrot cake."

"_Carrot _cake?" Louisa asked skeptically. "Why on earth would anyone make a cake out of carrots?"

"Is it actually _sweet?_" Kurt questioned, though he looked slightly more interested.

Brigitta was next to comment. "I never was one for the sweets, myself." The precocious brunette claimed thoughtfully, while unraveling a cinnamon roll with her fingers.

Father scoffed lightly as he watched her, but with slight amusement in his expression. "Really..." he said, without so much grace as to punctuate it with a question mark.

"Well, I don't think they're half bad." Kurt said between mouthfuls of oatmeal. The Captain grimaced at his son's lack of table manners. Noticing the warning glance, Kurt slumped down in his chair and clamped his mouth shut.

"Well, I'm going to try a piece if no one else is." Friedrich said bravely as he balanced a small slice on his plate.

"Look, there's a little carrot on top of it!" Marta pointed out.

"It's not a real carrot, is it?" Gretl asked incredulously.

"No, silly, it's a frosting carrot." Brigitta said in an obvious tone, spilling some orange juice as she clumsily poured it into her glass. "And by the way, cake is _not _a healthy food to eat."

Friedrich was still looking at the cake with fair uncertainty, as though reconsidering his choice to try it. "It seems like a cake made of carrots _would _be healthy."

"It's probably only five percent actual carrot." Brigitta countered in a superior tone as she attempted to swipe away the spilled juice by her plate with her napkin.

Father sighed as he inclined his head and began to massage his temples.

"Are you going to take even one bite of that cake, or not?" Louisa asked Friedrich in exasperation. "Because if you don't try it, Kurt certainly will."

Kurt protested vehemently, "I _hate _carrots."

"Then how come you always pick the carrots out of your pot pie so you can eat them last?" She challenged.

"I never ate them! I took them out so because I didn't want them ruining the rest of my food!" He swung his fork through the air to emphasize his words.

"Shh shh shh." Fraulein Maria hushed them briskly, not wanting to make Father angry.

"I like carrot cake." Friedrich said unaffectedly, half the cake already gone from his plate. "It doesn't taste like carrots at all, though." He mused.

"I wonder if any other vegetables are made into cakes.." Brigitta thought out loud.

"I think I've heard of a tomato cake - or maybe it was a certain kind of bread..." Louisa said, eager to share her knowledge on the subject even if it wasn't fully correct.

"I think it would be funny if there was a mushroom cake!" Gretl exclaimed, happy to add to a conversation that was simple enough for a five-year-old to claim involvement.

Her siblings giggled at the thought. "What about a celery cake? Or a cauliflower cake?" Kurt raised his spoon in the air, making invisible illustrations of what they would look like.

"There _are _potato _pan_cakes." Marta remarked softly.

"What if there were artichoke pancakes?" Friedrich suggested mystically, getting closer to Marta's face.

She crinkled her button nose and murmured, "Yucky!"

"No, no!" Kurt interrupted, very much into the conversation now, "Corn on the cob pancakes!"

Gretl cackled at this invention. She could hear Fraulein Maria's muffled laughter next to her.

"There's already corn_bread_." Louisa purposefully dampened.

Kurt shot her a glare and continued throwing out more outrageous suggestions.

For a while they went across the table, each shouting out a different ridiculous concoction involving a vegetable and a dessert, and then they would erupt in laughter.

Liesl bit her lip at an attempt to keep a calm façade as her siblings began to get progressively hyper, specifically after Friedrich's mention of a 'bok choy soufflé.'

Trying not to encourage the uproar, Fraulein Maria sucked in her cheeks and glanced nervously at the Captain, who was doing his best to ignore the immaturity around him; though it was easy to tell that he was struggling with laughing as well.

When he finished eating, he stood up from his chair and told the children that they had a few minutes to stop fooling around and finish their food.

Kurt promptly began shoveling in the last contents of his plate.

"And, Fraulein," Father added, staring intently at Fraulein Maria from across the table, "I will be out today with my guests, so if you wouldn't mind keeping the children...on a somewhat _mild _level for the rest of the day?"

Friedrich and Kurt exchanged glances, but Fraulein Maria smiled complacently, "Of course, Captain."

Father smiled distantly at her for a brief moment, then left the room.

As soon as he was gone, Kurt asked eagerly, "Can we go to the mountain again?"

Fraulein Maria never said no to that question. That was just one of the reasons Gretl loved her so dearly. She didn't refuse anything fun. She was almost like another member of the family.

Gretl hoped Fraulein Maria never made a _metaphorical cocoon_ - she was so perfect just the way she was.


End file.
